•  ;-   .     . 


§H 


11 


The  Wild  Goose 


W|t.  Or  CALIF.  LTBRAKY.  I-OS  ANGELE9 


THE  WILD  GOOSE 

HIS  DAUGHTER 

WHEN  MY  SHIP  COMES  IN 

THE  SEVEN  DARLINGS 

THE  INCANDESCENT  LILT 

THE  PENALTY 

IT,  AND  OTHER  STORIES 

THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  AND  OTHER  STORIES 

THE  FOOTPRINT,  AND  OTHER  STORIES 

IF  YOU  TOUCH  THEM  THEY  VANISH 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


"It  is  perfectly  safe  for  you  to  come  out  from  behind  my  wife  ! 


THE  WILD  GOOSE 


By 

Gouverneur  Morris 


New  York 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS 


COPYRIGHT,   1918,  1919,  BY 
THE    INTERNATIONAL    MAGAZINE    CO. 


Publisked  September,  1919 


The  Wild  Goose 


213139G 


THE  WILD   GOOSE 

CHAPTER   I 

FRANCIS  MANNERS  woke  up  one  morning  with  the 
feeling  that  he  was  a  long  way  from  home,  and  that 
he  had  been  away  a  long  time,  and  that  he  ought  not 
to  stay  away  any  longer.  "Ought"  is  a  strong  feel- 
ing; and  there  was  no  reason  which  he  knew  of  to 
justify  it.  He  had  gone  to  bed  with  the  feeling  that 
he  could  not  finish  his  work  in  California  before  the 
middle  of  April;  and  he  had  waked  the  next  morn- 
ing— a  blustery  one  near  the  end  of  February — with 
the  feeling  that  he  ought  to  go  home  at  once. 

This,  however,  was  impracticable.  In  order  to  pay 
his  most  pressing  obligations  he  had  undertaken  in 
a  moment  (which  he  now  felt  to  have  been  a  dark 
one)  to  fresco  the  dining-room  walls  of  Mrs.  Cooper 
Appleyard's  new  house,  and  he  had  still  to  make  the 
preliminary  sketch  for  the  end  with  the  two  doors. 
And  this  sketch  of  course  had  to  be  made  among  the 
surroundings  from  which  it  was  to  draw  its  inspira- 
tion. Mrs.  Cooper  Appleyard's  new  house  was  to  be 
Californian  inside  and  out. 

With  the  thought  that  he  could  perhaps  get  the 
sketch  finished  by  April  Fool's  Day,  he  turned  on  the 
cold  water  in  his  bathtub  and  began  to  shave.  While 
he  was  shaving  he  told  himself  that  he  really  ought 
to  go  home  at  once. 

1 


2  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

The  inside  of  his  bathroom  door  was  one  sheet  of 
looking-glass;  and  when  he  had  finished  shaving  his 
right  cheek  he  consulted  this  to  see  if  he  was  develop- 
ing a  stomach.  His  wife  had  once  told  him  laugh- 
ingly that  she  would  never  forgive  him  if  he  did,  and, 
as  she  had  a  laughing  way  of  saying  things  that  she 
really  meant,  sooner  than  go  back  to  her  looking  as 
if  he  had  swallowed  a  melon  Manners  would  have 
taken  drastic  measures.  He  observed  with  satisfac- 
tion that  his  contours  were  still  those  of  a  young  man, 
and  that  the  gray  hairs  above  his  temples  were  still 
so  few  as  to  be  enumerable. 

He  freshened  the  lather  on  the  left  side  of  his  face 
and  finished  shaving.  Then  he  got  into  the  very  cold 
water  which  he  had  been  drawing,  and  sat  down  with 
a  gasp  of  real  pain.  He  had  the  idea  that  disagreea- 
ble things  were  good  for  him;  but  there  was  little 
danger  that  he  would  ever  become  perfect  through 
overindulgence  in  them.  He  preferred  that  medi- 
ocrity which  distinguishes  those  who  habitually  pur- 
sue the  agreeable:  agreeable  foods,  drinks,  surround- 
ings, temperatures,  people.  If  there  had  been  nothing 
agreeable  about  cold  baths  he  would  have  taken  them 
hot.  But  the  real  pleasure  of  getting  out  of  one  more 
than  made  up  for  the  pain  of  getting  in.  And,  pass- 
ing from  tubs  to  triumphs,  from  the  pleasures  of  the 
body  to  those  of  the  soul,  wiser  men  than  Francis 
Manners  have  agreed  that  the  way  to  heaven  lies 
through  purgatory. 

During  a  few  moments  of  violent  friction  he  hadn't 
a  care  in  the  world ;  and  then  as  he  stood  on  one  foot 
(occasionally  hopping  sideways  or  backward  or  for- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  3 

ward  to  keep  his  balance)  and  drawing  a  black-silk 
sock  over  the  other,  his  serenity  was  once  more  dis- 
turbed by  the  feeling  that  he  really  ought  to  go  home. 

He  was  subject  to  sudden  intuitions,  especially  where 
his  wife  and  daughter  were  concerned.  That  more 
often  than  not  these  turned  out  to  be  groundless  did 
not  alter  his  faith  in  them,  or  his  wife's  dread  of  them. 
In  the  past  her  husband's  intuitions  had  more  than 
once  precipitated  those  difficult  situations  for  which 
her  own  impulses  had  been  responsible. 

At  the  moment,  so  far  as  Francis  Manners  knew,  all 
was  serene  between  them.  That  is  to  say,  as  serene 
as  things  ever  could  be.  For  the  husband  had  long 
since  abandoned  any  real  hope  of  that  perfect  marital 
serenity  for  which  he  had  given  the  best  that  was  in 
him  to  give,  and  to  which  he  might  have  been  thought, 
because  of  his  great  faithfulness  in  loving,  to  have 
acquired  a  title  that  was  without  law.  He  was  forty 
years  old,  but  he  could  look  his  wife  in  the  eyes  and 
say  truthfully:  "My  darling,  I  have  loved  you  for 
almost  a  generation." 

The  love  which  seemed  as  definite  a  part  of  Francis 
Manners's  nature  as  his  feeling  for  form  and  color 
was  a  victorious  love.  It  had  triumphed  over  such 
failures  toward  it  as  would  have  doomed  a  lesser  love 
to  an  early  death,  and  caused  it  perhaps  to  turn,  there- 
after, in  its  grave.  Of  course  he  loved  his  wife  in 
this  way  because  he  couldn't  'help  it.  He  couldn't 
help  it  any  more  than  he  could  help  the  shape  of  his 
ears;  but  he  was  human  enough  to  take  the  kind  of 
pride  in  it  which  should  more  definitely  have  been 
reserved  for  those  accomplishments  for  which  he  was 


4  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

more  or  less  responsible.  To  be  proud  of  his  eye  for 
color  would  have  been  childish,  since  he  had  been 
born  with  it;  to  have  been  proud  of  the  technique 
which  enabled  him  to  make  good  use  of  color  would 
have  been  sensible.  He  was  proud  of  neither.  He 
was  proud  only  of  that  faithfulness  in  loving  which 
had  cost  him  no  effort  whatsoever;  and  yet  people 
spoke  of  him  as  a  proud  man.  One  thing  is  certain: 
both  in  his  love  for  Diana  and  in  his  aversion  to  cold 
water  he  was  very  human. 

Manners  was  too  great  a  swell  by  birth  and  achieve- 
ment to  care  very  much  how  his  clothes  were  put  on, 
and  he  dressed  himself,  as  a  rule,  in  something  under 
seven  minutes.  But  this  morning  he  loitered  about 
his  room  in  various  stages  of  deshabille  and  smoked 
a  number  of  cigarets.  And  during  this  period  of  pro- 
crastination he  came  to  a  number  of  decisions  and 
admissions.  But  none  of  these  was  sufficient  to  shake 
the  stability  of  the  feeling  with  which  he  had  waked. 

Of  course,  if  Diana  was  in  a  real  difficulty  of  any 
kind  she  would  telegraph  him  to  come  home.  She 
would  telegraph  him,  for  instance,  if  their  little  daugh- 
ter were  seriously  ill.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  she 
was  only  in  a  half-difficulty  she  would  not  telegraph. 

He  read  over  half-a-dozen  of  her  short  letters,  se- 
lected at  random,  and  covering  the  whole  period  of 
their  three  months'  separation.  And  he  noted  that 
her  last  letter  of  all,  the  one  that  he  had  received  the 
day  before,  was  dated  Sunday.  In  this  fact  there 
was  of  course  nothing  disturbing.  What  disturbed 
him  was  the  knowledge  that  the  letter  had  been  writ- 
ten in  town,  and  not  in  the  country. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  5 

He  now  gathered  all  her  letters  together  and  went 
through  them  with  a  view  to  finding  out  when  they 
had  been  written  and  where.  And  although  a  number 
were  not  dated  at  all  it  was  conclusively  shown  that 
a  large  majority,  especially  during  the  last  two  months, 
had  been  written  in  town.  Three  of  these  were  dated 
Sunday. 

It  had  been  agreed  between  them  that  when  he  had 
to  be  away  on  business  she  would  manage,  much  as 
the  city  amused  her,  to  spend  most  of  the  week  look- 
ing after  their  small  daughter  "Tarn"  in  the  country. 
They  shared  the  theory  that  one  of  them  ought  al- 
most always  to  be  with  Tarn.  They  were  firmly  de- 
termined that  Tarn  should  not  grow  up  spoiled  and 
selfish,  and  if  left  too  much  to  the  indulgence  of 
Diana's  mother,  Mrs.  Langham,  who  lived  with  them, 
some  such  corruption  of  a  fine  little  character  was  to 
be  feared. 

Diana,  then,  was  neglecting  Tarn.  Of  course  he 
ought  to  go  home!  Talk  of  intuition!  But  it  was 
no  thought  of  the  neglected  Tarn,  wrapped  about  his 
heart  though  she  was,  that  made  him  suddenly  ex- 
perience a  kind  of  anxious  excitement.  At  the  back 
of  all  his  thoughts  there  was  always  the  vague  dread 
of  what  Diana  might  suddenly  feel  that  she  must  do 
next.  In  the  last  analysis,  he  sometimes  thought. 
Diana's  wishes  and  inclinations  were  her  sole  means 
of  judging  what  was  right  and  what  was  wrong.  In 
this  of  course  he  did  her  injustice.  The  truth  was 
that  Diana's  sense  of  right  and  wrong  did  not  always 
control  her  conduct. 

What  was  Diana  up  to  now? 


6  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

He  would  go  home  for  a  few  days,  just  long  enough 
to  find  out  what  was  wrong,  and  to  make  it  right  if 
he  could.  Then  he  would  come  back  to  California  and 
peacefully  finish  the  sketches  for  Mrs.  Appleyard's 
dining-room.  The  expense  of  the  trip  to  a  man  who 
was  trying  very  hard  to  be  economical  himself  so  that 
another  might  spend  bothered  him  a  little.  It  would  be 
hard  to  explain  to  Diana  his  sudden  return  to  New 
York;  especially  it  would  be  hard  if  her  reasons  for 
being  so  much  away  from  Tarn  were  merely  the  usual 
reasons:  love  of  people,  love  of  excitement,  and  a  rest- 
less energy  which  only  bodily  activity  could  calm. 

He  could  not  in  the  present  instance  help  suspect- 
ing that  there  must  be  a  more  specific  reason.  He 
rather  thought  that  she  must  have  taken  a  sudden 
fancy  to  some  new  "crowd"  (almost  a  habit  of  hers), 
who  in  return  (a  habit  of  theirs)  had  taken  an  im- 
mense fancy  to  her.  In  such  cases  one  party  leads  to 
another  so  naturally  and  pleasantly  that  all  sense  of 
time  and  proportion  is  easily  lost  sight  of. 

Diana,  then,  was  simply  having  a  mad,  glad  time. 
He  could  visualize  her.  When  she  was  excited  and 
in  high  spirits  there  was  no  prettier  woman  in  New 
York.  His  heart  beat  more  quickly  at  the  thought. 
But  even  the  most  amusing  crowds  in  New  York 
usually  leave  the  city  to  its  dull  fate  on  Sunday;  and 
here  was  Diana  spending  a  good  many  of  her  Sundays 
in  town! 


CHAPTER  II 

"YES,  SIR  !  You  may  take  it  from  me — a  wild  goose 
gander  has  got  us  men  skinned  to  a  frazzle !" 

The  insistent  old  duck-hunter  who  had  scraped  ac- 
quaintance with  Manners  in  the  smoking  compartment 
slapped  his  thigh  and  repeated  "You  may  take  it  from 
me." 

Manners  had  grown  to  like  the  old  fellow.  He 
liked  a  great  many  people  in  a  great  many  walks  of 
life,  and  his  dislikes  were  few.  Most  of  the  people 
whom  he  really  disliked  were  people  whom  he  did  not 
even  know  to  speak  to. 

The  old  duck-hunter  talked  a  great  deal;  but  he 
was  not  a  boaster.  He  was  interesting,  too.  For  he 
had  observed  even  more  than  he  had  shot,  and  with 
training  might  have  been  an  eminent  naturalist. 

The  train  was  east  of  Omaha,  and  it  was  long  past 
the  hour  at  which /Manners  usually  turned  in  when 
he  was  traveling.  There  had  been  something  about 
the  old  duck-hunter's  accounts  of  the  habits  of  wild 
geese  that  had  made  the  quarter  hours  pass  in  quick 
succession.  He  had  mixed  his  discursive  narrative 
with  observations  upon  men  and  women  and  their 
habits,  and  without  intention,  probably,  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  showing  Manners  into  a  heart  that  was  at 
once  kind  and  shrewd.  He  had  lost  his  wife  when  he 
was  a  young  man,  and  he  had  never  cared  about  any 
other  woman.  To  that  extent  he  himself  had  much 

7 


8  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

in  common  with  a  wild  goose.  But  there  the  resem- 
blance ceased.  He  had  meant  to  be  faithful  to  his 
wife's  memory  in  all  ways;  spiritual  and  technical. 
But  in  the  latter  way  he  had  failed.  He  regretted 
this,  but  not  poignantly.  If  they  were  to  meet  here- 
after in  the  Happy  Hunting-Ground  (as  he  put  it), 
she  would  understand  and  forgive.  "And  besides," 
he  had  misquoted,  "if  in  the  days  of  Innocency  even 
Adam  fell,  what  should  poor  Jack  Falstaff  do  in  these 
days  of  villainy?" 

"But  the  old  wild  goose,"  he  said,  "if  he  lost  his 
wife  when  he  was  only  six  or  seven  years  old  he'd  be 
faithful  to  her  memory  in  thought  and  deed  till  the 
day  of  his  death.  Often  they  live  to  be  a  hundred." 

Somehow  there  came  into  Manners's  mind  a  vision 
of  wild  wintry  hills,  and  of  an  old  gray  goose  flying 
high  through  the  clear,  piercing  cold  with  the  piled- 
up  anguish  of  eighty  years  of  grief  tearing  at  his  wild 
and  faithful  heart.  In  such  a  love  as  that  there  was 
a  something  of  chaos  and  infinity,  he  felt;  a  some- 
thing not  of  this  world.  The  starkness  and  loneliness 
of  such  loving  appalled  him.  Where  did  the  dumb 
bird  find  the  will  to  go  on  living  through  the  long 
generations?  Surely,  he  thought,  he  must  want  to 
end  it  all  and  die.  And  perhaps  there's  just  the  terri- 
ble part  of  it.  He  wants  death.  Every  waking  mo- 
ment for  eighty  years  he  has  wanted  nothing  but 
death,  and  he  doesn't  know  how  to  die.  He  doesn't 
know  how  to  kill  himself. 

He  spoke  his  thought,  and  the  old  duck-hunter 
said:  "I'm  not  sure.  They  vary  so  in  knowingness. 
Once — well,  it  may  have  been  a  case  of  suicide,  and 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  9 

again  it  may  not.  It  was  an  old  gray  goose — almost 
white  he  was — came  down  to  me  all  alone — dropped 
right  out  of  the  flock  which  had  taken  alarm,  and 
sailed  down  to  me  from  a  mile  up  and  more  than  a 
mile  away — sailed  down  with  his  wings  set — and, 
almost  right  into  me.  It  was  no  accident.  He  was 
so  close  that  I  could  see  his  eyes.  He  was  looking 
right  at  me,  and  he  wasn't  afraid.  I  was  so  flabber- 
gasted I  missed.  He  passed  over,  and  made  a  great 
swinging  circle,  and  then  he  came  right  for  me  again; 
He  wanted  his.  ...  In  all  my  gunning  I've  never 
seen  the  like  of  that.  The  second  time  I  let  him 
have  it  where — well,  Mr.  Manners,  I  let  him  have  it 
where  I  think  he  wanted  it.  ...  Makes  you  shiver 
when  you  think  of  a  poor  dumb  creature  mourning 
like  that  for  its  mate." 

"But  how  could  you  know  that  he'd  lost  his  mate  ?" 

"She'd  have  been  with  him  if  she'd  been  living, 
and  if  she'd  been  with  him  she'd  have  come  down 
with  him." 

Upon  an  impulse  which  was  quite  new  to  him  in 
his  experience  of  himself,  Manners  pulled  from  his 
pocket  a  small  leather  case  in  which  he  had  a  photo- 
graph of  Diana  and  Tarn,  and  showed  it  to  a  stranger. 
He  could  not  have  explained  why  he  did  this,  nor 
why  he  chose  to  take  that  stranger  still  further  into 
his  confidence. 

"I'm  something  of  a  wild  goose  myself,"  he  said 
simply;  "we've  been  married  for  ten  years,  and  I've 
loved  her  for  more  than  twenty.  She's  a  lot  younger 
than  I  am,  of  course ;  so  I  don't  have  to  worry  about 
what  I'd  do  if  I  was  left  behind." 


io  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

He  smiled,  and,  after  glancing  at  the  photograph, 
closed  the  case,  and  returned  it  to  his  pocket. 

"But  you're  young  yourself,"  said  the  old  duck- 
hunter.  His  only  comment  upon  the  photograph  had 
been  to  point  to  Tarn  and  say  "She's  some  kid !" 

"Yes,"  said  Manners,  "I  suppose  I  am.  But  I'm 
forty." 

"O  Lord,  please  bless  and  keep  my  Di  and  my 
Tarn,  and  make  them  perfectly  happy  always.  And 
I'd  like  to  be  happy,  too.  And  I'm  going  to  be  a 
better  father  and  husband,  and  not  so  selfish  all  the 
time." 

Francis  Manners  had  no  set  time  for  praying,  and 
he  seldom  prayed.  It  is  not  sure  that  he  even  believed 
in  God,  or  in  a  future  life.  He  thought  very  little 
about  either.  But  it  is  equally  sure  that  he  some- 
times addressed  God  by  name  and  asked  him  for 
things.  He  was  especially  given  to  this  at  night  when 
Tarn  and  Diana  were  asleep,  and  the  day  had  seemed, 
perhaps,  to  hold  out  promises  of  better  days  to  come. 
He  was  easily  discouraged  and  easily  encouraged.  To 
have  possessed  a  not-unwilling  Diana  gave  him  always 
a  mood  of  wonderful  exaltation  in  which  he  almost 
believed  that  she  was  done  with  her  traipsings  and 
would  end  by  loving  him  again,  as  she  had  loved 
him  in  the  beginning.  And  then  all  would  indeed  be 
well.  But  the  next  Diana  was  apt  to  be  an  unwilling 
Diana,  so  that  for  self-reproach  he  could  not  sleep. 
And  the  next  Diana  after  that  might  well  prove  to 
be  an  absolutely  impossible  Diana.  And  thereafter, 
of  course,  the  future  darkened,  and  he  knew  that  noth- 
ing would  ever  really  be  well  with  them  again. 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  n 

At  such  times  he  wished  to  heaven  that  he  could 
think  of  some  way  of  ending  it  all. 

There  was  too  much  blood  in  his  head,  or  else  the 
train  made  too  much  noise.  He  set  many  snares  for 
sleep  but  they  enmeshed  nothing.  He  was  in  for  one 
of  those  nights  when  uninvited  thoughts  run  in  circles 
and  trivial  things  become  magnified  until  they  cast 
shadows  across  life  itself.  But  his  thoughts  were  not 
all  unpleasant,  and  lingered  rosily  at  times  over  those 
years  with  Diana  which  had  contained  for  them  both, 
as  nearly  as  may  be,  the  sum  of  all  human  blisses. 

He  liked  to  think  of  himself  as  an  unselfish  man. 
But  he  was  not.  He  could,  however,  be  immensely 
generous,  which  is  a  very  different  thing,  and  his  night 
thoughts  were  often  brightened  with  immolations 
and  self-sacrificings,  which  in  a  few  more  minutes  of 
thinking  became  so  modified  with  conditions  and  com- 
plexities as  to  lose  their  brightness.  In  short,  he  could 
not  in  any  horoscope  of  Diana's  future  leave  himself 
out.  He  wondered  if  this  was  due  to  some  fault  in  his 
character,  or  to  the  fact  that  the  roots  of  their  two 
lives  were  indeed  inextricably  intertwined.  Loving 
her  he  could  not  of  course  be  only  her  friend,  nor  view 
and  review  her  altogether  from  the  standpoint  of  mere 
friendship. 

Sooner  or  later  his  thoughts  always  turned  to  the 
first  great  trouble  between  them,  that  trouble  which 
had  fallen  upon  him,  innocent  and  undeserving,  out 
of  a  clear  sky,  and  the  dread  of  whose  recrudescence 
or  recurrence  always  lurked  deep  in  his  being,  ready 
to  leap  up  without  warning,  and,  like  the  knowledge 
of  some  dreadful  inheritance  that  must  some  day 


12  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

have  its  way  with  him,  to  destroy  his  peace  and  im- 
pugn his  sanity. 

k  It  is  doubtful  if,  from  his  first  inklings  of  the  great 
trouble,  any  of  his  waking  hours  had  been  wholly 
free  from  its  influence.  It  is  certain  that  since  that 
moment  he  had  never,  as  so  very  often  before,  painted 
anything  that  was  wholly  gay  and  joyous.  It  was  an 
inconsiderable  compensation  to  know  that  the  wistful- 
ness  and  melancholy  which  had  crept  into  his  work 
had  increased  its  market  value.  The  gaiety  and  joy- 
ousness  of  the  old  mood  could  well  have  founded  and 
maintained  a  home. 

He  thought  of  the  little  house  that  he  had  built 
with  his  first  earnings  and  the  help  of  his  bank.  The 
dear  house,  and  the  dear  fields  and  orchards;  and  the 
brook  that  made  music  when  all  the  other  voices  of  the 
night  were  still.  He  thought  of  the  low  -  ceilinged, 
sweet,  clean  room  that  had  been  his  and  Diana's,  of 
Diana's  dressing-table  of  white  muslin  with  the  big 
silver  mirror,  and  of  Diana  sitting  before  that  mirror 
by  candle-light  and  looping  up  her  hair. 

He  thought  of  their  broad  bed,  and  of  the  fresh 
night  air;  fresh,  in  that  remote  hill  country,  even  on 
the  hottest  nights.  And  of  the  great,  sweet  freshness 
of  the  early  mornings;  of  waking  and  resting  on  his 
elbow  and  watching  Diana  until  she  waked.  Always 
in  those  days  she  had  waked  smiling  like  a  happy  child ; 
and  with  but  the  one  thought,  to  be  taken  quickly  into 
his  arms,  as  he  had  but  the  one  thought:  to  take  her. 
She  was  like  an  armful  of  roses. 

The  little  house  was  to  have  been  home.  It  was  to 
have  grown  this  way  and  that;  grown  as  his  fame 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  13 

grew  and  his  earning  power;  grown  as  his  love  grew 
and  his  tribe  increased. 

When  they  had  left  the  little  house  for  good  and 
all — left  it  for  the  impatient  modern  reason  that  it 
was  a  little  out  of  the  way  of  people  who  lived  in 
other  houses,  and  that  it  doesn't  really  do  to  get  sunk 
in  the  country,  Manners  had  left  behind  him  a  certain 
something  of  that  precious  quality  which  opposes 
change.  He  would  never  again  know  days  and  nights 
that  had  in  them  so  much  of  heaven.  And  yet  the 
mood  in  which  he  had  departed  with  Diana  from  the 
little  house  had  had  in  it  more  of  sentiment  than 
regret.  It  had  seemed  to  him  that  since  he  was  tak- 
ing Diana  with  him  there  could  be  nothing  really 
worth  regretting.  Still,  when  she  was  all  ready  in  the 
closed  motor,  and  his  foot  was  on  the  step,  he  had 
said,  "Wait,  I  forgot !"  And  he  had  darted  back  into 
their  house  and  up  to  their  room,  and  he  had  given  it, 
with  the  gray  eyes  that  missed  nothing,  one  panoramic 
look  that  should  fix  it  in  his  memory  forever,  and  he 
had  knelt  suddenly  and  touched  his  lips  to  the  floor. 

They  were  going  to  Newport  for  the  summer.  They 
could  not  afford  to  go  to  Newport.  But  when  he  had 
said  that  they  could  not  afford  to  go  a  shadow  had 
crossed  Diana's  face,  the  first  that  had  ever  crossed  it 
since  she  had  told  him  that  she  loved  him,  and — they 
were  going  to  Newport. 

When  they  crossed  the  bridge  he  had  thrust  his  head 
out  of  the  car  window  and  looked  back ;  only  the  roof 
of  the  little  house  and  the  two  white  chimneys  showed 
above  the  lilacs.  The  lilacs  were  in  full  bloom.  They 
were  purple  and  white. 


14  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

Many  times  since  that  day  Francis  Manners  had,  in 
imagination,  left  the  little  house  for  the  last  time.  But 
the  mere  sentiment  of  that  first  actual  going  had  been 
succeeded  in  the  imaginary  departures  by  an  ever- 
growing regret,  and  of  grief  even  that  was  akin  to 
anguish.  For  the  house  had  come  to  be  the  symbol 
of  the  thing  that  was  never  to  be;  no,  not  though,  like 
Ulysses,  he  went  through  hell  to  attain  it.  He  might 
work  until  his  eyes  cracked,  and  he  might  love  until 
his  heart  broke,  but  there  could  never  be  for  him  a 
home  with  the  voices  of  many  children  in  the  porches. 

The  line  of  an  old  song  went  through  his  mind : 

"My  home  is  not  built,  and  my  son  is  not  born." 

He  still  owned  the  little  house  and  a  semi-annual  in- 
terest payment  on  the  mortgage  would  be  due  on  the 
first  day  of  April.  He  kept  a  caretaker,  a  man  who 
knew  a  whole  lot  about  plants,  and  it  was  simply  won- 
derful how  the  garden  had  come  on. 

He  had  never  been  a  coward ;  and  Diana  had  wished 
him  to  see  their  child  born.  He  would  never  forget 
that  wild  winter  day  and  night  in  her  mother's  house. 
The  nurse  was  a  fool.  She  lost  her  nerve  completely. 
Manners  himself,  gray  with  fright  and  the  agony  that 
was  his,  too,  had  taken  the  chloroform  cone  from  the 
nurse's  hysterical  hand,  and  her  place  at  the  head  of 
the  bed.  He  had  followed  the  doctor's  instructions  as 
methodically  and  accurately  as  if  he  had  been  trained 
to  the  work.  Through  the  night,  at  intervals,  Diana's 
mother  had  come  into  the  room.  She  seemed  to  know 
just  what  was  going  on  at  the  moment  without  look- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  15 

ing.  She  had  taken  off  her  dress  and  put  on  instead 
a  blue-silk  dressing-gown.  It  had  sleeves  to  the  elbow 
finished  off  with  flounces  of  soft  lace.  She  would 
stand  with  one  elbow  and  forearm  resting  on  the  man- 
telpiece. She  had  been  perfectly  calm  and  matter-of- 
fact.  But  her  face,  that  was  as  beautiful  as  Diana's, 
looked  as  if  it  had  been  carved  out  of  gray  granite. 

Diana's  hair  had  been  done  into  very  tight  pig-tails. 
She  had  on  a  pair  of  Manners's  heavy  golf  stockings, 
absurdly  big  for  her,  because  in  spite  of  the  coal  fire 
that  roared  in  the  grate  and  the  hot  air  that  came  from 
the  furnace,  the  room  was  too  cold.  They  had  kept 
her  covered  as  much  as  possible.  They  had  spared  her 
all  the  pain  that  could  be  spared  her. 

There  were  no  idle  moments  for  Manners.  He  ad- 
ministered the  chloroform.  He  held  her  hand  tight 
— tight.  He  made  love  to  her,  in  a  loud  voice,  so  that 
his  words  might  pierce  the  veils  of  chloroform  and 
give  her  courage. 

"Dearest  Darling  Frank !  Dearest  Darling  Frank !" 
Even  in  the  midst  of  unspeakable  agony  that  cry  of 
love  and  of  trust  had  been  wrung  from  her  again  and 
again. 

O  God!  How  they  had  loved  each  other  through 
the  horrors  of  that  night!  Manners  had  thought  that 
she  was  going  to  die.  Even  the  doctor  had  grown 
very  anxious  toward  the  end,  and  had  glanced  more 
and  more  often  toward  that  dish  of  sterilized  instru- 
ments which  serve  their  end  when  it  has  become  evi- 
dent that  of  two  lives  only  one  can  be  saved. 

But  the  instruments  had  remained  in  the  dish. 
Diana  was  wonderfully  strong.  And  her  time,  though 


16  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

it  had  been  very  long  and  very  hard,  had  been  as  nor- 
mal as  the  time  of  a  wild  animal.  There  had  been  a 
cry  fine  as  a  needle,  and  Diana  had  asked  a  question. 

"Why,  Diana,"  the  doctor  had  said,  after  hastily 
assuring  himself,  "it  seems  to  be  a  girl." 

Manners  had  had  but  one  thought:  "She  must 
never  know  that  he  had  hoped  for  a  boy."  He  had 
knelt  swiftly  and  taken  her  oh,  so  tenderly,  in  his  arms, 
and  his  face  close  to  hers  had  whispered  "It's  a  girl, 
my  darling,  and  I'm  so  glad — so  glad!" 

Then  they  had  both  begun  to  cry,  their  tears  min- 
gling, and  the  doctor  had  spoken  sharply  to  Manners. 

She  had  slept  and  she  had  waked. 

"I  won't  ever  have  another,"  she  had  cried  sud- 
denly. "Never.  And  you  mustn't  ask  me  to,  you 
mustn't  ask  me  to!" 

A  queer,  pained  look  had  come  into  Manners's  face. 
She  was  blaming  him,  and  holding  him  responsible  for 
that  which  neither  of  them  had  thought  to  bring  about 
or  to  evade.  Their  little  daughter  had  simply  hap- 
pened. 

The  doctor  had  touched  Manners  on  the  shoulder 
and  said:  "Diana  doesn't  know  what  she  is  saying." 

But  the  sleeping  Diana  had  known  perfectly  well. 
And  thereafter  she  was  to  stick  to  what  she  had  said. 
At  least  so  far  as  Manners  was  concerned. 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  for  a  number  of  years 
Diana  Manners  had  been  more  concerned  with  her 
husband's  welfare  than  with  his  happiness.  If  he 
went  upon  a  journey  she  busied  herself  over  the  de- 
tails of  his  packing  and  of  his  departure  with  some- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  17 

thing  of  the  same  look  that  had  been  so  often  in  her 
eyes  during  the  first  years  of  their  marriage.  No  one 
could  get  things  better  done  or  more  expeditiously 
than  Diana.  She  had  immense  energy  and  a  genius 
for  the  telephone.  And  what  she  could  do  well, 
swiftly  and  without  mistakes,  she  very  naturally  en- 
joyed doing.  That,  and  no  sense  of  wifely  duty,  was 
most  likely  the  reason  why  she  always  insisted  upon 
packing  her  husband's  things.  It  was  in  1910  that 
she  had  forgotten  to  put  in  the  little  box  in  which  he 
kept  the  studs  for  his  evening  shirts.  He  could  not 
remember  any  other  omission  during  all  the  years  of 
their  marriage. 

She  was  very  fond  of  her  husband;  and  behind 
his  back  stood  up  for  his  opinions  and  admired  him 
— immensely;  but  to  his  face  she  seldom  praised  his 
work  or  seemed  to  agree  with  his  opinions.  It  was 
much  easier  for  her  to  find  fault  with  the  cut  of  his 
coat  or  the  color  of  his  tie  than  to  tell  him  that  she 
was  proud  to  be  seen  with  him,  because  now  that  the 
lines  of  character  in  his  face  had  begun  to  deepen  he 
was  getting  to  look  distinguished. 

Diana  would  not  go  higher  than  the  third  story  in 
a  hotel,  for  fear  of  fires;  and  for  other  people,  though 
by  no  means  for  herself,  she  was  afraid  of  journeys 
by  ship  or  train.  To  have  telegraphed  her  that  he 
was  coming  home  would  have  meant  for  Diana  a 
certain  amount  of  anxiety  (not  very  poignant,  of 
course),  and  it  had  hardly  even  occurred  to  Manners 
to  do  so.  And  he  had  reason  to  think  that  the  sur- 
prise of  his  sudden  and  unexpected  appearance  had 
still  an  element  that  would  afford  her  pleasure.  She 


i8  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

was  very  fond  of  him.  He  knew  that  and  depended 
on  the  durability  of  that  feeling.  But  he  couldn't  help 
wishing  that  she  would  show  her  fondness  for  him 
oftener  and  talk  about  it  more.  She  was  not  de- 
monstrative. 

Why  he  had  come  home  in  this  sudden  and  unex- 
pected manner  would  be  hard  to  explain.  "I  just  felt 
that  I  ought  to  come  home"  was  hardly  an  explana- 
tion ;  and  it  was  certainly  not  a  good  excuse  for  spend- 
ing a  lot  of  money  when  money  was  scarce,  and  for 
delaying  the  execution  of  a  handsome  commission. 
He  had  already  tried  it  on  Mrs.  Appleyard,  and  she 
had  shown  plainly  that  though  she  considered  him 
very  charming,  she  was  disgusted  with  him  for  so 
arbitrarily  and  unreasonably  holding  up  the  comple- 
tion of  her  new  house.  Artists,  she  had  told  him, 
were  all  alike.  They  were  all  spoiled  children. 

Why  did  he  feel  that  he  ought  to  go  home?  The 
intuition  upon  which  he  had  acted  could  not  be  re- 
solved into  anything  definite.  It  might  mean  that 
Tarn  was  a  little  sick;  but  nothing  to  worry  about; 
or  that  Diana  was.  It  might,  with  more  likelihood, 
turn  out  that  Diana  had  already  spent  all  the  money 
which  he  had  been  able  to  place  to  her  account.  It 
might  mean  any  of  a  dozen  things.  But  if  he  had 
thought  that  his  sudden  and  unexpected  appearance 
might  be  embarrassing  to  Diana  he  would,  of  course, 
have  telegraphed.  If  he  had  ever  had  the  impulse 
to  spy  upon  Diana's  actions  he  had  at  least  punctili- 
ously refrained  from  doing  so.  And  although  he  had 
reason  to  believe  that  her  heart  was  not  to  be  relied 
on,  he  trusted  her  as  men  trust  women  who  are  frank, 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  19 

clean-minded  and  truthful.  Diana  might  throw  her 
cap  over  the  windmill;  but  she  would  first  tell  him 
that  she  was  going  to. 

There  was  one  person  to  whom  the  explanation 
which  he  intended  to  give  of  his  home-coming  would 
be  sufficient  and  convincing.  He  would  tell  Tarn  that 
he  had  come  home  because  he  could  not  bear  to  stay 
away  from  her  any  longer. 

With  thoughts  of  the  welcome  that  he  would  have 
from  Tam  peace  came  to  him.  He  no  longer  tried 
to  account  for  the  intuition  that  was  hurrying  him 
home,  and,  his  sheets  and  blankets  in  a  cindery  snarl, 
he  settled  into  the  position  in  which  sleep  would  pres- 
ently find  him,  and  a  little  later  dreamed  that  he  was 
an  old  gray  goose  who  had  lost  his  mate,  and  could 
not  bear  to  live  any  longer,  and  that  he  was  volplan- 
ing down  from  the  skies  straight  for  the  muzzle  of  a 
double-barreled  shotgun.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER   III 

FRANCIS  MANNERS  kept  out  of  the  city  as  much  as 
possible.  And  the  small  apartment  which  he  rented 
in  the  Sixties  was  usually  spoken  of  as  his  wife's.  It 
was  almost  entirely  for  her  convenience  that  the  small 
suite  of  small  rooms  had  been  rented  at  all,  and  in 
the  choice  of  the  wall-papers,  chintzes  and  furnishings 
his  taste  had  not  been  consulted.  Nor  had  Diana 
given  free  rein  to  her  own.  Her  taste  ran  to  ex- 
tremely expensive  simplicity.  And  although  the  effect 
of  the  apartment  was  simple  enough,  it  had  been 
achieved  at  a  very  small  expense.  Only  the  linen  and 
the  toilet  articles  on  Diana's  dressing-table  showed 
that  she  could  be  extravagant. 

Francis  Manners  had  driven  directly  from  the 
Grand  Central  Station  to  his  club  in  43rd  Street. 
From  there  he  had  telephoned  first  to  his  house  in 
Old  Westbury. 

Tarn  had  reached  an  age  when  she  delighted  to 
answer  the  telephone,  and  when  he  heard  her  shrill 
voice  saying:  "Who  is  it,  plis?"  he  began  to  tremble 
all  over. 

"Who  are  you  ?"  he  asked  in  a  disguised  voice.  He 
heard  the  receiver  drop.  He  heard  her  crying:  "It's 
Fazzer!  It's  Fazzer." 

Then  he  heard  the  cool  and  quiet  voice  of  Diana's 
mother.  There  was  laughter  in  it. 

20 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  21 

"Tarn  is  so  excited  that  she  can't  speak,"  she  said. 
"But  where  are  you?" 

"In  New  York.     Is  Diana  there?" 

Something  told  him  that  Diana  was  not  there,  or 
she  would  by  now  be  audible  in  the  family  group  at 
the  other  end  of  the  telephone. 

"Diana  went  to  town  yesterday.  Have  you  tele- 
phoned the  apartment?" 

"Thought  I'd  try  home  first.  Did  she  intend  to 
come  out  to  the  country  this  afternoon,  or  don't  you 
know?" 

"She  said  she  would  try.  But  of  course  you'll  find 
her  and  bring  her  out.  You  can't  very  well  say  what 
train,  can  you?  But  what  brings  you  back?" 

"One  thing  and  another.     Are  you  all  well? 

"Very.     Tarn  especially." 

"Isn't  that  fine!"  he  exclaimed.     "Isn't  that  fine!" 

"Wait  a  moment.  Tarn  seems  to  think  she  can 
speak  now."  Again  the  child's  shrill  voice  started  up 
the  beating  of  his  heart. 

"I  couldn't  believe  it  was  you,"  she  said,  "I  was 
so  excited." 

"I  wish  you  could  just  see  how  excited  father  is," 
said  Manners.  "He's  shaking  like  a  leaf  on  a  tree. 
And  he's  going  to  come  out  to  the  country  just  as 
soon  as  ever  he  possibly  can  find  mother  and  catch  a 
train,  and  of  course  the  quicker  you  and  I  stop  talk- 
ing, the  quicker  I  can  find  mother,  and  so  my  own 
darling  good-by  to  you,  and  take  good  care  of  your- 
self." He  stepped  out  of  the  booth  and  gave  the 
number  of  Diana's  apartment. 

Diana's  maid,  Hilda,  answered  him,  and  told  him 


22  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

that  Mrs.  Manners  had  gone  out  for  lunch ;  she,  Hilda, 
could  not  say  where.  He  also  gathered  that  when 
his  wife  went  out  to  lunch  she  nearly  always  came 
back  about  three.  He  had  counted  somehow  on 
getting  in  touch  with  Diana  at  once,  and  he  came  out 
of  the  booth  with  an  unreasonable  feeling  of  depres- 
sion. The  truth  was  that  he  was  very  tired  after  his 
long  journey  across  the  continent;  tired  bodily,  opti- 
cally, and  mentally. 

He  telephoned  to  Sherry's,  Delmonico's  and  the 
Colony  Club,  but  Diana  was  at  none  of  these.  And 
as  it  was  now  a  quarter  before  two  he  felt  that  he 
ought  to  think  of  his  own  lunch.  This  in  the  end, 
thought  he  had  also  ordered  chicken  livers  Aquitaine, 
consisted  of  half-a-dozen  Cotuit  oysters  and  a  cup  of 
cafe  au  lait.  The  keen  appetite  with  which  he  had 
entered  the  club  had  left  him.  He  did  not  feel  like 
speaking  to  anyone,  but  for  once  he  seemed  to  know 
half  the  men  in  the  dining-room,  and  as  he  had  been 
away  so  long  many  of  them  came  to  his  table  to  wel- 
come him  back,  so  that  he  was  half  an  hour  over  a 
meal  that  shouldn't  have  wasted  ten  minutes. 

It  was  half-past  two  when  he  put  down  his  travel- 
ing bag  in  the  tiny  entrance-hall  of  Diana's  apart- 
ment, and  looked  at  his  watch.  He  would  have  to 
wait  at  least  half  an  hour  before  he  saw  her.  And 
if  not  interminable,  it  seemed  at  the  least  an  impor- 
tant period  of  time.  He  spent  most  of  it  on  his  feet, 
and  a  quarter  hour  (double  the  length  of  the  half) 
as  well. 

It  wasn't  in  any  way  Diana's  fault.  He  would  have 
been  the  first  to  admit  that.  And  if  he  did  not  ex- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  23 

actly  blame  her,  at  least  he  felt  irritated  with  her; 
not  steadily,  but  by  fits  and  starts.  Sometimes,  at 
the  sight  of  something  which  reminded  him  of  her 
loveliness  and  charm — the  mirror  on  her  dressing- 
table,  for  instance — an  ineffable  tenderness  came  over 
him,  and  he  drew  long,  slow  breaths. 

There  were  some  new  books  on  the  drawing-room 
table  and  he  paused,  in  his  caged  prowlings,  to  ex- 
amine the  titles:  "Twinkletoes,"  "The  Idiot,"  "The 
Seven  That  Were  Hanged."  And  when  he  had 
looked  at  the  fly-leaves  of  these  books  Manners  knew 
that  someone  whom  Diana  liked  had  given  them  to 
her,  because  she  had  taken  the  trouble  to  write  her 
name  in  them.  Would  she  never  come? 

The  first  thing  that  he  had  noticed  on  entering  the 
drawing-room  was  the  photograph  of  himself  in  a 
narrow  silver-gilt  frame  that  previously  Diana  had 
always  kept  on  her  dressing-table. 

"First  she  turns  me  out  of  her  room,"  he  had 
thought,  "and  now  she  turns  my  picture  out." 

But  he  had  gone  at  once  to  see  if  she  had  not  sub- 
stituted another  photograph  of  him  which  he  knew 
she  liked  better.  She  had  not.  And  he  had  felt  child- 
ishly hurt. 

He  looked  at  the  photograph  again,  went  close  to 
it,  and  spoke  to  it.  "What's  the  matter  with  her  any- 
way?" he  asked.  The  photograph  very  naturally  did 
not  answer.  It  did  not  even  seem  to  have  heard  the 
question  which  had  been  addressed  to  it.  "You've 
been  here  all  the  time,"  said  Manners,  "and  I've  been 
away.  You  could  tell  me  an  awful  lot  if  you  only 
would.  But  you  won't.  I  suppose  it's  because 


24  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

we  have  nothing  in  common  except  that  we  look 
alike." 

He  heard  the  hall  door  open,  and  a  moment  later 
Diana's  voice.  "Whose  bag?  Why,  for  heaven's 
sake!  .  .  .  Frank!" 

Somehow  he  had  already  gathered  that  Diana  was 
not  alone.  And  that  knowledge  damped  the  ardor 
of  the  embrace  with  which  he  must  otherwise  have 
greeted  her. 

"Why,  Frank !"  she  said.   "How  you  frightened  me !" 

They  had  not  really  kissed*  Their  cheeks  had 
touched  for  a  moment,  and  now  she  had  backed  away 
from  him,  and  although  she  didn't  look  in  the  least 
frightened  she  did  look  a  little  bewildered  and 
troubled.  Then  she  remembered  her  companion. 

"Ogden,"  she  called,  "come  and  meet  my  hus- 
band .  .  .  of  all  the  surprises!" 

A  moment  later  she  had  introduced  to  her  husband 
a  man  named  Fenn. 

It  is  doubtful  if  at  that  moment  he  made  upon 
Manners  a  single  distinct  impression  of  any  kind.  If 
he  seemed  anything  to  Manners  he  seemed  shy,  gen- 
tle, embarrassed  and  very  much  in  the  way.  Ordi- 
narily Manners  would  have  exerted  himself  to  be 
amusing  and  polite.  But  he  was  really  very  tired, 
the  waiting  had  put  his  nerves  on  edge,  and  the  man- 
ner of  his  meeting  with  the  woman  whom  he  loved 
with  all  his  tender  heart  had  been  very  disappointing 
— that  and  the  photograph  and  everything — took  from 
him  his  usual  power  of  free  and  easy  speech.  Diana 
came  to  the  rescue. 

"I  don't  know  what's  happened,"  she  said,  "or  why 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  25 

you  are  here.  But  of  course  you  want  to  go  to  the 
country  at  once  to  see  Tarn,  and  I  suppose  of  course 
that  you  want  me  to  go  with  you." 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  and  turned  to  Fenn.  "I'm 
awfully  sorry  to  be  in  the  way;  but  I  am  and  it  can't 
be  helped." 

Mr.  Fenn  said  something  about  "only  going  to  the 
movies,"  and  relapsed  at  once  into  a  gentle  and  em- 
barrassed silence.  It  was  obvious  that  he  wanted  to 
get  away  and  that  he  did  not  know  how.  Manners 
helped  him.  He  thrust  out  his  hand: 

"I'm  awfully  sorry,"  he  said.  "It's  horrid  of  me, 
but  I  haven't  seen  my  wife  and  baby  for  months  and 
months.  And  I  know  you'll  understand.  Awfully 
glad  to  have  met  you." 

Mr.  Fenn  turned  somewhat  awkwardly  toward  the 
door.  Diana  smiled  brightly  at  him  and  said:  "Sorry, 
Ogden,  'nother  time!" 

She  seemed  to  be  no  more  interested  in  his  de- 
parture than  if  he  had  been  the  paperhanger,  and  she 
turned  to  her  husband,  still  smiling. 

But  the  smile  drooped  a  little  at  the  corners,  and 
Manners  was  shocked  to  observe  that  Diana  really 
looked  as  if  she  might  be  thirty.  His  irritation  and 
his  disappointment  faded  before  a  feeling  of  pity  and 
compassion.  His  Diana  was  tired,  and  she  wasn't 
looking  well,  and  she  wasn't  happy,  and  he  couldn't 
make  her  happy.  He  had  never  seen  her  look  so 
badly.  Even  her  color  was  not  good. 

"You've  been  overdoing,  dear,"  he  said.  Usually 
she  would  have  denied  the  imputation  or  shrugged  it 
aside.  But  she  didn't  this  time.  She  said:  "Shouldn't 


26  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

wonder."  And  she  added:  "How  you  did  frighten 
me!" 

Almost  immediately  she  left  him  to  pack  the  little 
bag  which  served  her  as  a  sort  of  link  between  what 
she  kept  in  town  and  what  she  left  in  the  country, 
and  Manners,  having  lit  a  cigaret,  resumed  his  caged 
prowlings.  In  the  telling  American  of  it  he  felt  "All 
in,"  "Sunk."  Diana  had  not  been  pleasantly  sur- 
prised. During  his  absence  he  had  gained  no  ground 
with  her.  She  had  been  sadder  at  parting  than  she 
was  glad  at  meeting.  He  wished  to  ask  her  at  once 
what  was  the  matter.  But  he  knew  that  Hilda  was 
with  her  and  that  he  must  wait.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  had  to  do  almost  more  waiting  in  his  life 
than  anyone  he  knew.  His  had  been  enforced  wait- 
ings. He  could  never  during  any  one  of  them  have 
had  the  satisfaction  of  saying  with  Ravenswood  "I 
bide  my  time."  He  bided  his  times,  indeed,  but  only 
because  he  was  made  to. 

Was  Diana  really  beginning  to  lose  her  looks?  To 
him  that  could  never  make  any  difference.  His  love 
for  Diana  was  not  founded  upon  her  looks,  nor  were 
the  flames  of  it  fanned  by  them.  But  to  Diana  it 
would  be  so  tragic.  With  regard  to  her  looks  and  to 
the  development  of  her  character  it  had  always  seemed 
to  him  as  if  for  once  Time  was  surely  going  to  stand 
still.  At  the  station  only  a  few  months  before  she 
had  looked  like  a  young  girl.  And  to-day  she  looked 
her  age,  which  was  thirty.  And  of  course  she  knew 
it.  Compassion  possessed  him  and  hurt  him.  He 
longed  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and  hold  her  tight — 
tight. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  27 

He  went  softly  to  her  bedroom  door.  But  she  had 
not  finished  packing  and  Hilda  was  with  her. 

"Most  finished?"  he  asked. 

"Almost/'  she  said.  "We'll  have  to  get  some  things 
at  the  Parlor  Market.  Do  you  mind?  You  see,  we 
weren't  either  of  us  expected  to-night." 

Manners  returned  to  the  drawing-room;  but  this 
time  he  had  not  long  to  wait.  He  would  not  let  Hilda 
help  him  with  the  bags,  and  Diana  went  ahead  to  open 
the  doors.  He  took  it  for  granted  that  Diana  had 
ordered  a  taxi.  What  an  able  little  person  she  was. 
There  was  nothing  that  she  couldn't  get  done!  If 
only  she  wouldn't  scatter  her  energy  so !  How  won- 
derful if  she  had  put  it  all  into  building  up  a  home; 
all  her  energy,  all  her  ability,  all  her  charm  and  love- 
liness ! 

They  were  no  sooner  in  the  taxi  than  he  took  her 
hand  in  his,  and  he  held  it  all  the  way  to  the  Parlor 
Market,  and  thereafter  to  the  Pennsylvania  Station. 
"I'm  tired  and  fussed,"  he  explained,  "and  it  goes 
right  through  me  and  soothes  me.  If  you  only  knew 
how  I  love  you!" 

He  felt  a  faint  pressure  from  her  fingers,  and  she 
said  very  quietly  and  gravely: 

"I  do  know,  Frank." 

In  the  old  wonderful  days  she  would  have  looked 
at  him  with  those  wonderful  blue  eyes  of  hers,  eyes 
that  were  sometimes  gay  and  imploring  at  the  same 
moment,  and  she  might  have  answered: 

"If  you  only  knew  how  I  love  you !" 

"Diana,  dear,"  he  said,  "there's  something  on  your 
mind,  something  that's  troubling  you." 


28  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

But  she  said  there  was  nothing.  And  he  believed 
her.  Having  her  say  definitely  that  there  was  noth- 
ing was  a  real  relief  to  him.  She  qualified  her  denial. 

"It's  been  a  little  hard  about  money,"  she  said. 
"That  Chicago  person  has  never  sent  the  check  for 
his  wife's  portrait." 

"Why,  you  poor  child!"  exclaimed  Manners,  "I 
supposed  of  course  that  you  had  that." 

"I  knew  how  much  you  had  to  worry  you,"  said 
Diana.  "And  so  I  just  did  the  best  I  could  without 
it.  But  I  never  knew  anything  about  money  before. 
And  you  can  be  sure  of  one  thing.  I'm  not  going  to 
be  extravagant  any  more." 

It  was  the  first  time  that  she  had  ever  made  a  posi- 
tive promise  of  reform  about  anything.  Her  usual 
formula  was:  "Why,  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  try;  but 
I  don't  suppose  I  can." 

Somehow  that  promise,  though  she  had  phrased  it 
in  the  form  of  a  mere  statement,  made  him  feel  as 
if  a  barrier  was  breaking  down  between  them.  Now 
at  last  she  understood  that  his  complaints  about  her 
extravagance  had  not  been  those  of  a  mean  and  ill- 
natured  man,  but  of  one  who  had  been  sorely  tried 
and  harassed.  But  he  merely  squeezed  her  hand  and 
said: 

"Then  we'll  be  out  of  debt  in  no  time." 


CHAPTER   IV 

As  the  short  journey  drew  toward  an  end,  all  Man- 
ners's  feelings  of  fatigue  and  oppression  kft  him. 
It  wouldn't  be  long  now  before  he  would  see  Tam, 
and  hear  her  voice,  and  carry  her  upward — leaping  to 
his  breast,  and  hold  her  as  tightly  as  he  dared,  and 
his  long,  wearisome  journey  would  end  in  at  least  one 
meeting  of  lovers.  He  became  so  immersed  in  an- 
ticipation of  that  happy  event  that  he  found  difficulty 
in  finding  topics  for  conversation.  He  asked  random 
questions  about  things  and  persons,  and  his  mind 
made  no  records  of  Diana's  answers.  He  would  ask 
her  many  of  those  same  questions,  the  next  day,  when 
they  went  for  their  walk,  and  she  would  say  "But  you 
asked  me  that  yesterday!"  And  he  would  have  no 
recollection  of  having  asked  her. 

"Who's  Fenn?"  he  asked. 

"There  were  a  lot  of  them  when  I  was  little.  They 
went  West.  And  this  one  has  only  been  in  New  York 
a  short  while.  He's  very  shy." 

"I  thought  he  seemed  ill-at-ease.  But  that  was 
natural  enough;  finding  me  there  ivas  awkward." 

But  Manners  at  this  time  was  not  in  the  least  in- 
terested in  Fenn. 

"Everything  all  right  at  the  farm?" 

"Yes.  But  McCoy  is  clamoring  for  wages.  His 
letters  are  really  outrageous." 

29 


30  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"He  doesn't  mean  to  be  impertinent,  and  he's  really 
devoted  to  us.  Seen  a  lot  of  Mary  Hastings?" 

"Not  very  much — somehow." 

"Pshaw !    I  love  to  have  you  see  her." 

A  momentary  vision  of  the  famous  Mrs.  Hastings 
arose  before  his  mind's  eye.  Her  beauty  was  a  real 
joy  to  him.  He  had  always  proclaimed  that  she  was 
the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the  world.  She  was 
Diana's  closest  friend;  she  had  a  splendid  influence 
on  Diana,  and  it  hurt  him  to  think  that  they  had  not 
been  seeing  very  much  of  each  other. 

And  now  the  hack  which  they  had  hired  turned  into 
the  short  shady  driveway  that  led  to  their  house. 
And  he  spoke  no  more.  Before  the  hack  had  stopped 
he  was  out  of  it,  abandoning  Diana  and  the  luggage. 
He  tore  open  the  front  door,  and  rushed  into  the  hall 
crying :  "Tarn ! — Tarn ! — Tarn !" 

And  there  came  a  rush  of  little  feet  and  a  shrill 
voice  crying  "My  Fazzer!  My  Fazzer!"  And  then 
they  were  in  each  other's  arms,  and  somehow  it  could 
be  seen  that  they  were  one  flesh,  one  blood,  one  heart, 
one  soul,  and  that  God  had  made  them  for  each 
other. 

Neither  Diana  nor  her  mother,  who  had  come  out 
of  the  library  where  she  had  been  trying  to  keep  Tarn 
quiet,  looked  at  them.  For  there  was  a  kind  of  holi- 
ness about  their  rapture  which  it  was  not  fitting  for 
mortal  eyes  to  behold. 

And  then  he  was  sitting,  and  had  Tarn  astride  of 
his  knees  facing  him,  and  their  eyes  glistened  very 
brightly  with  delight.  He  had  demanded  that  she 
tell  him  everything  that  she  had  been  doing,  but 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  31 

because  for  her  the  winter  had  had  but  one  tremen- 
dously important  event  it  was  about  that  that  she  told 
him. 

"Once,"  she  said,  "Muzzer  took  me  to  town  to 
spend  the  night.  And  Mr.  Fenn  took  us  to  the  Hip- 
podrome, and  there  was  a  giant  and  a  dwarve  and  I 
stayed  up  till  the  middle  of  the  night !" 

Something  of  Manners's  gladness  went  right  out 
of  him. 

"Oh,  Diana,"  he  cried,  "how  could  you?  I'm  so 
disappointed." 

"Tarn  was  so  crazy  to  go,"  said  Diana.  "She  talked 
of  nothing  else." 

"But  she  can  only  go  to  the  theater  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life — once,"  said  Manners,  "and  I  did  so  want 
to  be  there  that  time.  Who,"  he  asked,  with  the  least 
trace  of  temper  in  his  voice,  "is  this  Mr.  Fenn  who 
comes  along  and  gobbles  up  my  privileges?" 

"He's  awful  nice,"  said  Tam,  "  'n  he  can  blow 
wings." 

But  Manners  had  forgotten  Fenn  and  the  Hippo- 
drome, and  his  disappointment,  and  with  an  "Oh,  my 
darling!"  he  had  once  more  clasped  his  little  daughter 
to  his  breast. 

Between  kissing  Tam  good-night  and  dinner-time 
there  was  half  an  hour  during  which  Manners  and 
his  mother-in-law  sat  in  front  of  the  library  fire  and 
talked  about  Diana. 

At  night,  at  a  little  distance,  Mrs.  Langham  was 
still  beautiful.  Her  back  was  perfectly  straight  and 
her  small  head  was  splendidly  erect  The  gray  hair 
hardly  showed  against  the  light  brown ;  she  was  slen- 


32  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

der  and  always  becomingly  dressed.  Like  Diana,  she 
was  extraordinarily  neat.  Manners  had  only  one  fault 
to  find  with  his  mother-in-law;  she  was  almost  wil- 
fully inclined  to  indulge  Tam  and  to  spoil  her. 

"Diana  seems  to  be  dead-beat,"  he  said.  "I  do  wish 
she  wasn't  so  restless." 

"It's  the  vice  of  her  generation,"  said  Mrs.  Lang- 
ham.  "You  suffer  from  it  yourself,  Frank." 

"I  keep  it  in  bounds,  and  make  it  paint  pictures." 

"If  Diana  only  had  something  to  do.  Restlessness 
is  a  symptom  of  idleness.  And,  like  any  bad  habit, 
the  more  it's  indulged  in  the  worse  it  grows." 

"She  has  something  on  her  mind,"  said  Manners. 
"Have  you  thought  that?  Something  is  troubling 
her.  I've  asked  her  to  tell  me  what  it  is,  but  she  says 
there's  nothing."  He  laughed,  but  not  mirthfully. 
"She'll  tell  me,"  he  said,  "when  she  gets  good  and 
ready,  and  not  before." 

Mrs.  Langham  was  devoted  to  her  son-in-law.  And 
all  through  the  troubles  that  he  had  had  with  Diana 
she  had  felt  herself  to  be  entirely  on  his  side.  But 
she  had  been  very  careful  not  to  show  this  by  any 
word  or  act.  She  believed  firmly  that  people  who 
take  sides  openly,  or  in  any  way  interfere,  as  between 
husband  and  wife,  are  more  apt  to  make  matters  worse 
than  better.  She  had  a  sense  of  justice  which  even 
the  love  of  a  mother  for  her  daughter  could  not  bias ; 
and,  in  her  judgment,  Manners,  all  things  considered, 
was  an  excellent  husband;  while  Diana  was  by  no 
means  an  excellent  wife.  During  the  first  years  of 
their  marriage  she  had  entertained  the  highest  hopes 
of  Diana.  These  hopes  had  diminished  until,  al- 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  33 

though  still  a  part  of  her  general  maternal  faith,  they 
were  not  untinged  with  cynicism. 

According  to  her  observations  very  few  women 
made  really  good  wives  until  they  had  lost  their  looks. 
Their  husbands  were  apt  to  have  more  love,  then,  she 
thought,  and  less  care. 

"You'd  hate  me,"  said  Manners,  "if  I  took  her  back 
to  California  with  me." 

"No.  But  I  should  decline  absolutely  to  be  respon- 
sible for  Tarn  in  the  meanwhile.  I  have  brought  up 
five  children  of  my  own,  thank  you." 

"I  sometimes  wish."  said  Manners,  "that  once  in 
a  while  you  had  corrected  one  of  your  children  with 
a  rod." 

"Poor  Mr.  Langham  and  I  told  you  at  the  time 
that  you  were  marrying  a  handful." 

A  smile  of  great  sweetness  stole  over  Manners's 
face.  He  rose  and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  fire, 
still  smiling. 

"And  good  Lord,"  he  said,  "how  I  still  love  her!" 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  Diana  appeared  in  the 
doorway.  She  had  had  a  hot  bath  and  looked  re- 
freshed. Whether  she  had  color  or  not  made  a  great 
difference  in  Diana's  looks.  How  bright  and  crisp 
her  -dark-brown  hair  was,  and  how  charmingly  she 
carried  her  head. 

"I  think  dinner's  ready,"  she  said. 

"If  it  is,"  said  her  husband,  "then  one  thing  is  as 
sure  as  anything  can  be:  I  am  going  to  dine  with  two 
extremely  pretty  women." 

He  had  an  arm  for  each  of  them  and  he  hurried 
them,  laughing  and  protesting,  to  the  dining-room. 


34  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

Diana  had  very  little  to  say.  She  announced,  how- 
ever, that  she  was  dead-tired  and  that  she  was  going 
to  bed  right  after  dinner.  Manners  glanced  at  that 
bright  brown  head,  and  wondered  for  the  hundredth 
time  that  day  just  what  particular  troubling  thought 
it  contained.  If  he  had  known  his  heart  would  have 
stood  still. 

Diana  looked  calm  and  serene.  What  would  Man- 
ners have  thought  if  she  had  yielded  to  the  impulse 
which  was  urging  her  to  leap  to  her  feet,  to  throw 
down  the  candlesticks,  to  smash  glasses  and  to  scream: 
"For  God's  sake,  let  me  go!  I  want  to  die!  I  want 
to  die!" 

Dinner  was  short,  but  although  Manners  and  Mrs. 
Langham  kept  up  an  energetic  conversation,  it  passed 
slowly.  Calm  and  serene  though  she  seemed,  Diana 
could  not  altogether  deceive  her  mother  and  her  hus- 
band; and  she,  equally  versed  in  their  moods  and 
habits  of  mind,  knew  their  talk  and  laughter  for  the 
pretense  they  were. 

"The  quicker  I  leave  these  young  things  together," 
thought  Mrs.  Langham,  "to  blow  the  clouds  away  or 
kiss  them  away,  the  better." 

And  shortly  after  dinner  she  wished  them  good- 
night upon  a  plea  of  letter-writing,  and  ascended  to 
her  room,  humming  gaily  as  she  went.  But  there  was 
no  gaiety  in  her;  neither  did  she  write  any  letters. 
For  a  long  time  now  she  had  felt  that  she  was  living 
over  a  volcano.  She  could  only  hide  this  feeling  from 
others.  Alone  in  her  own  room  the  corners  of  her 
handsome,  courageous  mouth  drooped.  And  it  was 
an  old  woman  who  that  night  lay  down  at  twelve 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  35 

o'clock  in  her  narrow  bed,  and  slept  no  wink  till  after 
four. 

"And  I'm  going  up  too,"  said  Diana,  almost  imme- 
diately after  the  sound  had  come  to  them  of  Mrs, 
Langham's  door  closing.  "I  suppose  you'll  be  stop- 
ping in  to  say  good-night  to  me?' 

She  met  his  look  bravely,  and  even  waved  to  him 
from  the  stair.  He  could  not  know  that  when  she 
had  closed  the  door  of  her  room  she  dropped  on  her 
knees  by  the  bed,  and  began  to  sob  like  a  broken- 
hearted child. 

There  was  still  so  much  of  the  child  in  Diana  that 
she  cried  all  the  time  she  was  undressing  and  looping 
up  her  hair  for  the  night,  and  after  she  had  washed 
her  face  with  cold  water  she  cried  some  more,  and 
had  to  wash  it  again.  From  her  prayers  she  rose, 
not  with  placidity  and  resignation  in  her  face,  but 
with  resentment.  Of  the  short-lived  look  of  refresh- 
edness  that  had  followed  her  hot  bath  there  was  no 
longer  any  trace.  There  were  dark  circles  under  her 
eyes,  and  she  looked  haggard. 

Her  husband  came  to  her  presently  in  his  pajamas 
and  a  long  wrapper  of  white  toweling.  He  seated 
himself  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and  took  both  her 
hands  in  his.  He  looked  into  her  eyes  a  long  time, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that  in  their  blue  depths  he 
could  detect  fear  and  animosity.  The  beating  of  his 
heart  became  less  emphatic. 

"Diana,  dear,"  he  said,  "you  are  fond  of  me,  aren't 
you?" 


36  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"I  don't  think  you  know  how  fond  of  you  I  am," 
she  said. 

He  leaned  over  her  and  slid  his  left  arm  under  her 
shoulders.  In  his  right  hand  he  still  held  both  hers. 

"Diana,  darling,"  he  said,  "doesn't  it  make  any 
difference  that  I  love  you  with  my  whole  heart  and 
soul?" 

"It  makes  a  lot  of  difference,  Frank." 

He  loosed  her  hands  and  took  her  altogether  into 
his  arms.  His  face  dropped  to  hers,  but  she  turned 
hers  away,  so  that  it  was  her  cheek  that  he  kissed, 
and  in  the  same  instant  of  time  he  knew  that  she  had 
begun  to  cry. 

Francis  Manners  had  his  great  moments,  and  the 
passion  that  shook  him  turned,  as  at  the  touch  of  a 
magician's  wand,  into  pity  and  chivalry.  He  rubbed 
his  cheek  against  hers,  and  almost  in  his  natural  voice 
he  said: 

"I  know  how  tired  you  are,  darling.  I'm  only  say- 
ing good-night." 

He  lowered  his  arms  from  about  her,  and  rose  once 
more  to  a  sitting  position.  Diana  neither  looked  nor 
spoke  her  gratitude.  She  never  did.  In  certain  ways 
the  grave  itself  could  be  no  more  reluctant  to  disclose 
its  secrets  than  Diana.  As  a  matter  of  fact  she  was 
so  grateful  to  her  husband  that  she  dareti  not  speak 
about  it.  He  smiled  upon  her  so  sweetly  that  his 
smile  had  in  it  something  of  the  angelic.  And  her 
heart,  at  once  wayward  and  compassionate,  was  tor- 
tured with  remorse. 

Soon  after  he  had  left  her  she  fell  into  the  sleep 
that  follows  mental  exhaustion.  Her  last  thoughts 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  37 

were  of  the  many  great  hurts  she  had  done  her  hus- 
band. And  before  sleeping  she,  whom  he  had  never 
suspected  of  making  a  resolution  of  any  kind,  made 
many  noble  and  wonderful  resolutions,  all  with  his 
happiness  in  view,  and  believed  that  this  time  she 
would  keep  them. 

In  moments  of  dejection  Manners  believed  that  for 
his  wife  such  words  as  "compassion,  mercy,  pity,  self- 
sacrifice,  justice"  had  no  meaning  whatever,  when 
the  truth  was  that  they  held  for  her  so  much  mean- 
ing that  her  repeated  failures  to  be  compassionate, 
merciful,  pitiful,  self-sacrificing  and  just  tormented 
her.  It  was  a  pity  that  Diana  was  so  inarticulate. 
Her  husband  thought  that  he  knew  her  like  a  book. 
He  did  not  know  her  at  all. 

Some  such  moment  of  dejection  was  upon  Manners 
now.  His  chivalrous  mood  had  been  succeeded  by 
one  of  discouragement  and  self-pity,  and  the  man 
whose  last  smile  had  had  in  it  something  of  the  angelic 
looked  now  extremely  human  and  cross.  "That  was 
no  way  for  a  wife  to  welcome  a  husband  when  he'd 
been  away  for  months  and  months!"  "Wouldn't  you 
think  she'd  want  to  make  up  to  me  for  all  the  hurts 
she's  given  me?"  "Damn  all  this  modern  restless- 
ness, and  all  this  business  about  people  who  ought  to 
be  one  feeling  that  they  must  live  their  own  sacred, 
selfish,  separate  lives  in  their  own  way."  With  such 
thoughts  he  worked  himself  into  a  rage.  The  blood 
got  into  his  head  and  he  could  not  sleep.  "I've  loved 
her  for  twenty  years,"  he  thought.  "I've  been  faith- 
ful. I've  supported  her,  and  worked  my  hands  off 
for  her,  and  it  means  nothing  to  her.  Nothing!" 


38  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

It  was  a  pity  that  he  could  not  have  known  that 
that  very  love  of  his,  which  she  did  actually  at  times 
seem  to  hold  in  such  small  esteem,  had  more  than 
once  waved  her  back  from  the  brink  of  a  precipice 
toward  which  she  was  rushing. 


CHAPTER   V 

DIANA  had  her  breakfast  in  bed  and  sewed  during 
most  of  the  morning.  At  such  times  her  room  was  the 
clearing-house  for  all  family  affairs  and  for  her  own 
personal  ones.  Either  the  door  was  open  and  she  was 
interviewing  the  cook  or  the  waitress ;  or  the  door  was 
shut  and  she  was  telephoning  with  friends  in  the  city. 
Manners  came  and  went,  but  as  Tarn  was  nearly 
always  at  his  heels  there  were  no  opportunities  for 
really  intimate  conversation. 

He  had  waked  more  sure  than  ever  that  something 
specific  was  troubling  Diana;  and  the  anger  that  he 
had  felt  against  her  was  all  gone.  She  didn't  look 
well,  even  after  her  long  sleep,  and  she  didn't  look 
happy,  and  he  couldn't  keep  his  mind  off  her  health 
and  her  happiness. 

Tarn  was  a  real  nuisance  that  morning,  for  her 
father's  heart  was  not  in  the  business  of  playing  and 
romping.  But  he  did  not  wish  her  to  know  this,  and 
he  forced  a  gaiety  which  deceived  no  one  but  Tarn.  By 
noon  his  nerves  had  been  brought  to  a  fine  edge,  and 
it  was  not  till  then  that  he  had  a  few  minutes  alone 
with  Diana.  As  on  the  preceding  night  he  seated  him- 
self on  the  edge  of  her  bed,  and  contemplated  her  for 
quite  a  long  time  without  speaking.  Diana  made  a 
great  many  of  her  own  clothes,  and  at  the  moment  her 
eyes  were  busy  with  the  shirtwaist  which  she  had 

39 


40  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

begun  that  morning,  so  that  their  expression  was  hid- 
den from  her  husband. 

"I  think  you  might  put  that  thing  down  and  talk 
to  me,"  he  said. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Diana  had  gone  to  sleep 
with  her  mind  filled  with  good  resolutions.  She  put 
down  her  work  obediently,  and  with  real  sweetness  of 
expression  looked  up  to  meet  her  husband's  eyes.  This 
time,  cost  what  it  might — yea,  though  she  broke  her 
heart — she  was  going  to  keep  those  good  resolutions, 
every  one  of  them.  He  should  perhaps  have  kissed 
her,  told  her  not  to  be  late  for  lunch,  and  left  her.  But 
this  is  doubtful.  Her  nerves  were  on  edge,  too.  Per- 
haps it  did  not  matter  much  what  he  said  or  did. 

"I  want  to  know  what's  wrong,  Diana." 

Her  expression  lost  its  sweetness  instantly. 

"Why  should  anything  be  wrong?" 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know;  but  I  should  like  to,  and 
also  what  it  is." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  she  knew  that  if 
she  was  going  to  keep  some  of  her  good  resolutions 
she  would  have  to  break  others. 

"It  isn't  right  for  you  to  keep  anything  from  me," 
he  said. 

"Oh,  Frank,"  she  exclaimed,  "don't  talk  about  right 
and  duty.  Did  I  ever  do  anything  right  because  it  was 
right?  If  I  ever  do  do  right  it's  because  I  want  to." 

"You  tell  me  there  is  nothing  wrong,"  said  Man- 
ners, "but  I  know  you  much  too  well  to  believe  that. 
On  the  whole  you  are  the  most  truthful  person  I  know, 
so  that  on  the  few  occasions  when  you  have  attempted 
to  deceive  you  have  made  a  perfect  botch  of  it." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  41 

Diana  couldn't  help  smiling  at  this  description  of 
herself.  It  was  perfectly  accurate. 

"So  I  know  there's  something,"  he  went  on,  "but  I 
can't  be  sure  that  you  are  ever  going  to  tell  me  what 
it  is.  Won't  you  please  tell  me,  dear  ?  Maybe  I  could 
do  something  to  help?" 

"There  isn't  anything,"  she  said.  And  he  knew  that 
she  was  not  telling  the  truth. 

"Have  it  your  own  way !"  he  exclaimed,  with  some 
temper.  "But  you  ought  to  remember  that  the  things 
I  imagine  will  be  a  good  deal  worse  than  what  you 
could  tell  me,  if  you  only  would,  and  show  a  little  con- 
sideration." 

"Frank,"  she  said,  "I  have  some  things  to  tell  you, 
and  I  think  you'll  be  pleased.  But  it's  time  for  me  to 
dress,  and  I'm  not  going  to  tell  you  now." 

"All  right,  dear.    Can  I  stay  and  watch  you  dress?" 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't,  Frank.  It  makes  me 
nervous." 

He  sighed  and  went  out  obediently.  '  There  had  been 
a  time  when  if  in  the  course  of  twenty-four  hours  he 
had  not  seen  Diana  in  all  stages  of  dress  and  undress, 
she  would  have  felt  slighted.  The  best  picture  he  had 
ever  painted  had  been  of  Diana  without  any  clothes  on 
at  all.  He  had  painted  it  for  the  sheer  love  of  paint- 
ing it.  And  then  he  had  destroyed  it. 

But  it  was  good  to  know  that  the  things  which  she 
was  going  to  tell  him  would  please  him.  And  his  imag- 
ination began  to  feed  on  this  promise,  leaping  from 
small  things  to  great,  until  his  breast  was  filled  with 
hopes  of  an  exceeding  rosiness. 

He  had  always  believed  that  she  had  a  splendid 


42  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

character,  and  that  some  time  it  would  triumph  over 
all  her  faults  and  failures.  Perhaps  even  now  that 
bright  hour  was  at  hand. 

The  frost  had  begun  to  come  out  of  the  ground 
and  so  they  kept  to  the  macadamed  roads.  Diana 
had  already  told  him  very  briefly,  almost  sulkily,  that 
she  had  made  up  her  mind  to  give  more  of  her  time 
to  Tarn,  and  to  be  economical.  But  she  did  not  say 
that  in  all  other  ways  she  had  resolved  to  make  him 
a  better  wife.  Her  resolutions,  indeed,  were  all  going 
to  pieces  under  the  pressure  of  continuous  introspec- 
tion, and,  of  course,  Manners,  whose  hopes  had  been 
so  rosy,  was  disappointed. 

"I  wish  you  could  say,"  he  said,  "that  you  were 
going  to  live  my  life — our  life — a  little  more.  You 
are  away  from  me  so  much  with  people  I  hardly  know, 
and  whom  I  don't  care  two  straws  about.  It  hurts  me 
like  the  devil." 

"I  thought  we'd  settled  all  that  years  ago." 

"If  doing  things  I  beg  you  not  to  do  is  settling  them, 
why  then  we  did — years  ago." 

They  covered  several  hundred  yards  without 
speaking. 

"Suppose,  for  instance,"  said  Manners,  "you  came 
back  from  a  journey,  and  went  to  the  apartment  to 
wait  for  me,  and  I  burst  in  on  you  with  a  perfectly 
strange  lady.  You  wouldn't  like  it.  Even  though  you 
don't  love  me,  you  wouldn't  like  it.  But  it's  all  right 
for  you  to  burst  in  on  me  with  a  strange  man  in  tow. 
And  I'm  supposed  to  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 
But  I  don't — inside." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  43 

"Nowadays,"  said  Diana,  "every  woman  has  her 
own  friends." 

"Things  might  have  been  better  for  us,"  he  hinted 
darkly,  "if  you  hadn't  insisted  on  having  yours." 

And  he  had  one  of  those  sharp  pangs  of  jealousy 
which  still  tormented  him  at  times,  though  the  orig- 
inal cause  of  them  had  long  ceased  to  exist. 

"You  rode  deliberately  for  the  first  tumble,"  he 
said,  "and  ever  since  you've  fteen  riding  for  another. 
And  when  you  get  it  you'll  say  that  it  just  happened 
and  nobody  could  help  it,  and  I'll  have  to  be  contented 
with  that.  It's  fine  that  you  are  going  to  look  after 
Tam  better,  and  be  economical ;  but  why  not  turn  the 
new  leaf  all  the  way  over?  Live  our  life,  Diana,  and 
be  a  real  wife  to  me!" 

All  that  he  had  said  seemed  to  pass  from  Diana 
like  water  from  a  duck's  back.  And  she  made  no  com- 
ment. Manners,  who  in  all  justice  had  long  been 
sorely  tried  by  her  stubbornness  and  independence, 
began  to  lose  his  temper. 

"Good  Lord!"  he  exclaimed,  "why  don't  you 
divorce  me,  and  then  you  could  go  your  own  way, 
lamented  of  course,  but  uncriticized !" 

It  was  not  the  first  time  that  in  a  crackle  of  temper 
he  had  made  some  such  suggestion  to  her;  only  to  be 
brought  short  up  with  an  "Oh,  don't  be  silly!"  But 
on  the  present  occasion  Diana  startled  him  by  saying: 
"And  if  I  did — would  you  let  me  have  Tam?" 

"I've  loved  you,"  he  said  quickly.  "I've  been  faith- 
ful to  you,  I've  taken  care  of  you;  now,  just  because 
you  are  restless  and  bored  with  your  lot,  you  think 
you'd  like  to  divorce  me,  and  have  Tam  too.  You 


44  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

as  much  as  declare  in  one  breath  that  you  are  no  good 
and  that  you  are  fit  to  bring  up  a  child.  If  you  didn't 
manage  to  hurt  me  so  like  the  devil,  Diana,  I  could  put 
back  my  head  and  laugh." 

Diana  said  nothing  and  they  walked  on  and  on. 

"Diana,"  there  was  no  temper  in  his  voice  now,  only 
a  developing  fear,  "you  don't  really  mean  that  you'd 
like  to  be  free,  and  take  'tarn  away  from  me?" 

"You  said  I  couldn't*have  Tarn." 

"Most  certainly  you  can't,  unless  your  reasons  for 
getting  rid  of  me  are  better  than  I  think  them." 

He  glanced  sideways  and  observed  to  his  horror  that 
although  she  walked  bravely  along  with  her  head  in 
the  air,  her  mouth  was  all  puckered,  and  slow  tears 
were  running  out  of  her  eyes.  Upon  the  strength  of 
that  sight  he  was  able  to  change  his  whole  voice  and 
manner. 

"March  around  New  York  certainly  does  beat  the 
Dutch!"  he  exclaimed.  "There  isn't  a  darn  thing  to 
do;  no  golf,  no  tennis,  no  people,  no  nothing.  If  I 
only  had  the  money  I'd  grab  you  and  Tam  by  the 
scruffs  of  your  necks  and  carry  you  back  to  California 
with  me." 

But  his  heart  was  leaping  with  a  wild  alarm. 
"There  is  something  wrong,"  he  kept  thinking,  "some- 
thing terribly  wrong." 

"March  is  almost  nice  in  California,"  he  went  on, 
"and  April  is  wonderful." 

Still  struggling  against  her  tears,  but  in  a  matter- 
of-fact  voice,  Diana  asked  him  when  he  had  to  go 
back.  And  he  told  her  that  he  had  to  go  back  at  once, 
and  that  indeed  he  ought  not  to  have  come  away  at  all. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  45 

"I've  finished  the  whole  bally  room,"  he  said,  "ex- 
cept one  end.  I  can't  get  even  the  sketch  for  that  to 
suit  me." 

"Couldn't  you  do  it  here  ?"    He  shook  his  head. 

"It  has  things  in  it  that  don't  even  grow  around 
here,"  he  explained.  "No.  It's  got  to  be  done  on  the 
spot.  And  of  course  poor  Mrs.  Appleyard  is  in  a 
dreadful  hurry." 

"Is  she  nice?" 

"Y-e-e-s.  But  she  looks  like  Ellen  Terry,  and 
knows  it." 


CHAPTER   VI 

NEXT  day  Diana  went  to  town  by  an  early  train. 
Manners  could  not  believe  that  the  shopping  of  which 
she  made  an  excuse  could  be  very  urgent;  and  the 
prospect  of  passing  one  whole  day  of  his  short  visit 
without  her  depressed  him  extremely.  "She's  as  cool 
about  it,"  he  thought,  "as  if  I  were  a  permanency." 
But  he  made  no  effort  to  dissuade  her,  and  kissed  her 
good-by  with  a  good  heart. 

Ajid  indeed  most  of  the  day  passed  pleasantly 
enough  for  him.  March  had  come  in,  soft  and  gentle 
as  a  lamb.  Here  and  there  in  sunny  angles  his  sharp 
eyes  detected  fine  and  tender  young  blades  of  green 
grass.  It  was  a  hopeful  day.  It  made  him  feel  as  if 
he  could  find  within  him,  without  too  much  searching, 
the  strength  and  ambition  to  begin  life  over  again.  It 
was  one  of  those  days  when,  even  in  the  teeth  of  logic 
and  experience,  his  wish  is  the  father  of  a  man's 
thought. 

And  his  thoughts,  during  the  earlier  hours  of  ftie 
day,  fashioned  a  future  that  was  rosy  and  contented. 
He  believed  that  out  of  the  curious  harassed  phase 
through  which  Diana  was  passing  her  real  character 
would  emerge.  A  miracle  was  not  needed.  It  was 
only  necessary  that  during  one  crumb  of  time  she 
should  see  herself  as  others  saw  her. 

But  the  day  was  not  entirely  devoted  to  thinking 
and  wishing.  Mrs.  Langham  and  Tarn,  in  whom  the 

46 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  47 

home  instinct  was  as  strong  as  it  was  in  Manners  him- 
self, had  spent  most  of  their  winter  improving  the 
rented  premises  and  establishing  those  interesting 
accessories  which  grew  up  about  an  owned  home.  In 
November  they  had  planted  dwarf  fruit-trees;  eight 
in  all.  There  were  two  varieties  each  of  apple,  pear, 
peach,  and  cherry.  And  the  nurseryman  had  prom- 
ised them  fruit  in  the  first  season.  About  the  roots  of 
these  adorable  little  trees  Tarn  had  stamped  the  earth 
her  own  self. 

"You  never  know  how  long  you  are  going  to  live 
in  a  rented  house,"  Mrs.  Langham  thus  explained  her 
extravagance;  for  the  trees  had  cost  two  dollars  and 
a  half  apiece.  "And  if  we  should  stay  here  several 
years  they  will  make  the  place  so  much  more  inter- 
esting." 

"Just  as  soon  as  the  fruit  begins  to  form,"  said 
Manners,  "the  trees  ought  to  be  covered  with  mosquito 
netting  or  something  to  keep  the  birds  off.  If  we 
could  only  get  some  very  fine-meshed  fish-nets  like  I've 
seen  in  Scotch  gardens!  They're  tarred,  and  so  they 
last  practically  forever." 

In  November  they  had  also  planted  and  caused  to 
be  planted  in  the  grass  some  thousands  of  mixed  bulbs. 
How  many  hundreds  of  these  Tarn  had  placed  her  own 
self  in  the  holes  which  the  gardener  had  made  it  would 
be  impossible  to  say.  By  way  of  being  neighborly 
they  dug  up  one  bulb  to  see  how  it  was  getting  on,  and 
behold  it  was  already  well  rooted,  and  from  its  dis- 
tended and  bursting  crown  a  rigid  spike  of  white, 
deepening  into  pale  green  at  the  point,  was  thrusting 
vigorously  upward. 


48  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"Isn't  spring  wonderful?"  exclaimed  Manners. 
"Isn't  it  wonderful!  Everything  that's  cold  and  dis- 
couraged takes  heart  and  starts  for  the  light.  Did 
you  know,  Tam,  that  sometimes  the  grass  grows  so 
fast  that  you  can  hear  it  ?" 

"Have  you  heard  it,  Fazzer  ?" 

"Never.  But  so  many  people  say  they  have  that  I 
believe  it's  true.  Maybe  Grandma  has?" 

No,  but  Grandma's  father  had.  He  had  been  ex- 
traordinarily intimate  with  Nature.  Grandma  had 
once  seen  him  her  own  self  standing  bareheaded  and 
barehanded  on  the  tiptop  of  a  stepladder,  and  scoop- 
ing masses  of  swarmed  wild  bees  from  a  lower  limb 
of  the  big  black  walnut  that  had  grown  in  front  of 
their  house  and  putting  them  into  a  hive.  Even  spiders 
wouldn't  bite  him.  When  he  was  sick  he  made  his 
own  medicines  out  of  different  kinds  of  plants  that  he 
found  in  the  fields  and  woods. 

"And,"  said  Tam,  without  realizing  that  she  was 
gilding  the  nature-lovingness  of  this  much-discussed 
and  almost  mythological  ancestor,  "he  had  sixteen 
children." 

"Now  let's  show  your  father  the  chickens,"  said 
Mrs.  Langham. 

As  she  led  the  way  to  where  a  practical  chicken- 
coop  had  been  improvised  from  an  old  dog-kennel, 
Manners  found  himself  admiring  for  the  thousandth 
time  the  light,  alert  walk  of  his  mother-in-law. 
Very  easily  she  might  have  been  mistaken  at  a  little 
distance  for  Diana.  The  chicken-run  contained  five 
White  Leghorn  hens  and  their  proud,  husband.  They 
were  quite  tame  and  evidently  expected  to  be  fed. 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  49 

Tarn,  although  she  winced,  and  flew  other  signals  of 
nervousness,  let  them  peck  the  palm  of  her  hand.  And 
it  made  Manners  very  proud  to  think  that  his  little 
daughter  was  not  a  cry-baby. 

A  real  carpenter  had  made  the  dog-kennel  what  it 
was;  but  he  had  had  plenty  of  amateur  assistance. 
Tarn  had  done  most  of  the  whitewashing;  and  the 
posts  for  the  chicken-wire  had  been  driven  by  Mr. 
Fenn. 

The  day  had  been  almost  altogether  pleasant  up  to 
the  mentioning  of  Mr.  Fenn's  name,  which  seemed,  at 
this  third  or  fourth  casual  mention  of  it  since  Man- 
ners's  return,  to  take  on  a  certain  importance.  And  he 
had  now  to  force  an  expression  of  that  natural  interest 
which  he  took  in  everything  that  interested  Tam.  It 
was  an  automatic  and  uninterested  palm  which  he 
offered  to  the  hungry  beaks  of  Tarn's  poetry. 

"And  what,"  he  asked  lightly,  "was  Mr.  Fenn  doing 
out  here?" 

And  with  equal  lightness  Mrs.  Langham  answered: 
"We've  had  him  over  a  number  of  week-ends.  He's 
a  great  friend  of  Diana's." 

"So  it  would  seem,"  said  Manners.  Half-kneeling 
he  continued  to  offer  his  palm  to  the  chickens;  for 
every  time  it  was  pecked  Tam  squealed  with  delight. 
Mrs.  Manners  looked  down  on  the  pair  and  there  came 
into  her  eyes  an  expression  in  which  a  kindly  cynicism 
seemed  to  be  mixed  with  compassion. 

Manners  was  thinking  to  himself:  "It  couldn't  be. 
He's  so  timid  looking." 

Wipe  a  damp  slate  lightly  with  a  wet  sponge  and 


50  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

instantly  the  marks  of  the  slate-pencil  seem  to  disap- 
pear. But  as  the  wet  dries,  unless  the  wiping  has  been 
thorough,  the  marks  reappear.  It  would  be  so  with 
the  attempt  which  Manners  now  made  to  erase  all 
thoughts  of  Fenn  from  his  mind. 

In  the  afternoon,  having  made  a  rendezvous  with 
Tarn  for  teatime,  he  stretched  his  legs  swiftly  over 
many  miles  of  road.  Exercise,  he  believed,  after  the 
wearisome  train  journey,  was  all  that  he  needed  to 
get  the  blood  out  of  his  brain  and  put  his  mind  into  a 
healthy  condition.  And  for  a  few  miles  his  belief  was 
justified.  Nothing  could  be  troubling  Diana  espe- 
cially, therefore  nothing  was  troubling  her.  She  was 
merely  in  tune  with  the  season;  the  keen,  brisk  New 
York  winter  was  over.  If  there  was  still  a  great 
spread  of  gaiety  it  had  begun  to  taste  stale  to  the  ban- 
queters. Spring,  real  spring,  was  still  a  long  way  off. 
All  that  Diana  needed  was  golf,  tennis  and  riding. 
Subconsciously  she  was  waiting  until  the  frost  should 
be  out  of  the  ground,  the  footing  sound,  and  the  trees 
misted  with  green.  With  the  first  spring  flowers  Diana 
herself  would  bloom  again. 

His  next  home-coming  would  be  very  different.  The 
Hempstead  plains  would  be  flooded  with  violets.  The 
spring  would  be  in  Diana's  thoughts  and  in  her  blood 
perhaps. 

The  next  time  he  would  telegraph  that  he  was 
coming.  It  had  been  a  mistake  this  time  to  spare  her 
anxiety  for  his  safety.  It  is  good  for  wives  to  be  a 
little  anxious  now  and  then — not  too  anxious,  but  a 
little.  He  didn't  propose  to  have  a  perfect  stranger 
present  to  spoil  that  next  meeting  with  Diana.  The 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  51 

next  time  his  quick  eyes  proposed  to  themselves  to 
recognize  her  pansy-like  face  from  afar,  as  he  came 
hurrying  up  the  platform  to  the  iron  gate  outside 
which  she  would  be  waiting. 

He  would  have  finished  his  commission,  the  final 
payment  would  be  on  deposit.  This  time  they  could 
pay  all  their  debts,  every  single  last  one  of  them,  and 
if  Diana  wished  they  could  afford  Newport  for  six 
weeks  or  two  months.  It  would  be  strange  if  he  did 
not  pick  up  a  handful  of  orders  to  paint  portraits. 
Seeing  how  happy  it  made  him  to  be  out  of  debt,  Diana 
would  see  to  it  that  they  never  fell  into  debt  again. 
He  would  take  his  work  more  seriously;  he  wouldn't 
play  quite  as  hard.  He  would  play  a  certain  amount 
of  golf,  of  course,  but  he  would  never  again  lie  awake 
at  night  thinking  how  to  get  a  ball  into  a  hole  in  the 
fewest  number  of  shots.  If  he  must  sleep  badly  he 
would  at  least  turn  the  discomfort  of  it  into  profit. 
He  would  think  about  his  work.  Lack  of  thought  was 
all  that  was  really  wrong  with  his  work.  It  had  charm, 
so  all  men  said,  at  least,  and  a  preposterous  facility; 
but  it  lacked  guts. 

He  drew  to  one  side  to  give  free  passage  to  an  over- 
taking car,  and  heard  himself  loudly  and  joyously 
hailed  by  name.  The  two  men  who  occupied  the  ton- 
neau  had  turned  and  were  waving  to  him.  The  car 
had  begun  to  slow  down  and  presently  stopped.  Harry 
Crowninshield,  followed  more  slowly  by  the  other 
man,  jumped  out  and  came  running  back  to  meet 
him. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  he  roared.  "Diana 
told  me  only  the  other  day  you  were  glued  to  'Frisco ! 


52  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

You  know  Tevis  ?"  His  surmise  was  correct,  for  Man- 
ners and  Tevis  had  once  been  famous  rivals,  and  time 
was  when  each  of  them  fancied  that  he  knew  the  other 
only  too  well.  Crowninshield,  remembering  this  sud- 
denly, felt  that  he  had  been  a  little  stupid,  and  at- 
tempted to  pass  it  off  by  roaring,  "And  how  is  Diana  ?" 

The  younger  men  both  laughed,  for  they  had  long 
since  compounded  their  difficulties,  and  Manners  an- 
swered that  Diana  was  fine. 

"Glad  to  see  you  back  ?    I'll  bet  she  wasn't !" 

"How  much?"  asked  Manners,  the  laugh  still  on 
his  mouth. 

"I  won't  name  any  sum ;  but  don't  ever  forget  what 
the  mice  do  when  the  cat's  away.  And  if  they  seem  to 
look  glad  when  the  cat  comes  back,  why,  believe  me, 
it's  all  crocodile  stuff." 

It  is  probable  that  Crowninshield  only  meant  to  be 
amusing.  But  somehow  Manners's  heart  seemed  to 
contract,  and  he  was  glad  when  the  two  men  had 
climbed  back  into  their  car  and  left  him  to  his 
thoughts,  though  from  these  the  rosiness  was  already 
departing.  It  really  had  been  awkward  and  disagree- 
able when  Diana  had  come  into  the  apartment  with 
that  man  Fenn  in  tow. 

Manners  had  a  pair  of  eyes  which  lost  very  few 
tricks  of  appearance;  but  of  Fenn's  appearance  they 
had  made  hardly  any  records  whatever.  "If  we  met 
face  to  face,"  thought  Manners,  "I  should  not  know 
who  he  was ;  very  likely  I'd  think  that  I  had  never  even 
seen  him  before." 

He  had  turned  and  was  walking  back  toward  that 
rented  house,  which  for  want  of  a  more  accurate  term 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  53 

he  called  Home,  but  the  jubilance  had  gone  out  of  his 
feet.  Was  Diana's  true  character  ever  going  to  come 
out  after  all?  Was  he  not  probably  wrong  about  her 
having  a  hidden  character?  Was  it  not  more  likely 
that  to  the  very  end  she  would  remain  impulsively 
helpful  and  impulsively  troublesome? 

The  darker  passages  in  their  married  life  crowded 
into  his  memory.  It  was  in  his  power  almost  to  re-live 
those  awful  moments  in  which  he  had  learned  from 
her  own  lips  that  she  no  longer  loved  him;  and  those 
moments  still  more  awful  when  weeks  later  she  had 
told  him  that  she  loved  another  man. 

The  spring  warmth  had  gone  out  of  the  day  and  a 
gusty  wind  had  risen  and  was  beginning  to  blow  from 
the  northwest.  It  was  five  o'clock  when  he  reached 
his  house  and  learned  that  Diana  had  telephoned,  and 
wanted  him  to  call  her  up  at  the  apartment. 

Manners  was  bitterly  disappointed.  He  had  ex- 
pected to  find  Diana  waiting  for  him  at  the  house. 
She  had  hinted  that  she  would  probably  come  out  by 
an  early  train.  And  now  it  was  five  o'clock,  and  she 
had  not  even  started.  "Oh,"  he  thought,  seating  him- 
self at  the  telephone  in  the  coat-room,  "she  ought  not 
to  treat  me  like  this." 

But  for  a  moment  he  was  mollified  by  the  mere 
sound  of  her  voice.  It  was  so  calm  and  natural.  She 
asked  if  he  was  all  right,  and  if  Tarn  was  all  right. 

"Fine,"  he  said.     "When  are  you  coming  out?" 

"That's  what  I  wanted  to  speak  to  you  about.  I 
seem  to  be  dog-tired,  and  I  wondered  if  you'd  mind 
awfully  if  I  spent  the  night  in  town?" 

He  did  not  answer  at  once;  but  drew  a  long  sharp 


54  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

breath.  It  was  as  if  he  had  suddenly  been  immersed 
in  cold  water.  Then  he  said,  with  irritation: 

"Go  ahead.  Suit  yourself.  I  suppose  you  realize 
that  I  came  home  principally  to  see  you,  and  that  I'm 
only  on  for  a  few  days."  Diana's  voice  remained  per- 
fectly calm. 

"You'd  rather  I  came  out?" 

"Rather?  Of  course  I'd  rather.  But  of  course  if 
you  are  really  too  tired  ..." 

"All  right.    I  can  catch  the  five-forty." 

It  had  been  an  easy  victory.  And  he  thought  no 
longer  of  his  own  disappointment,  but  of  Diana's. 

"Don't  do  that!"  he  urged  affectionately.  "I  was 
disappointed — awfully — at  the  thought  of  not  seeing 
you  till  to-morrow ;  but  that  was  pure  selfishness.  By 
all  means  stay  in  town  and  rest  up." 

But  Diana  refused.  She  hadn't  supposed  that  it 
mattered  one  way  or  the  other.  She  would  come  out 
by  the  five-forty.  She  was  perfectly  definite. 

"Well,"  said  Manners,  "if  you're  not  really  too 
tired,  I  think  that's  best." 

Until  the  time  of  Diana's  arrival  he  played  with 
Tarn;  but  only  half-heartedly.  He  felt  that  he  had 
been  unjust  to  Diana,  and  he  hated  injustice.  He  had 
only  to  look  at  her  to  know  that  she  was  tired,  and 
yet,  because  she  proposed  to  rest,  he  had  been  angry, 
and  was  dragging  her  out  to  the  country  in  the  train 
that  was  always  crowded  and  stuffy.  And  of  course, 
she  couldn't  help  feeling  that  he  had  been  unjust  to 
her  and  resenting  it.  The  prospects  of  some  affection- 
ate hours  together  were  not  good. 

And  indeed  when  she  arrived  Diana's  face  showed 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  55 

that  she  was  not  pleased  with  what  she  had  been  made 
(oh,  yes,  he  had  made  her)  to  do.  And  Manners  heart- 
ily wished  that  he  had  not  shown  irritation  at  her  sug- 
gestion of  spending  the  night  in  town;  for  if  she  was 
too  tired  to  talk,  and  if  she  was  going  to  have  her 
dinner  in  bed,  and  try  to  get  to  sleep  right  afterward, 
his  irritation  had  gained  him  nothing.  On  the  con- 
trary it  had  caused  him  a  temporary  fall  of  some  dis- 
tance in  Diana's  good  graces ;  and  his  only  satisfaction 
would  be  in  knowing  that  she  was  somewhere  tinder 
the  same  roof  with  him. 


CHAPTER   VII 

DIANA  sat  in  the  hall  for  a  few  minutes  before  going 
upstairs.  Perhaps  she  wished  to  show  him  that  she 
was  too  tired  to  go  a  step  farther.  But  it  is  more 
likely  that  the  nearest  chair  with  a  cushion  influenced 
her  and  nothing  else.  Tarn  wished  to  climb  upon  her, 
and  Diana  would  not  have  it;  but  she  put  an  arm 
around  the  child  and  squeezed  her  affectionately  to 
her  side. 

"You're  really  all  in,  aren't  you?"  said  Manners. 
"It  was  so  thoughtless  of  me  to  urge  you  to  come  out. 
I  can't  tell  you  how  sorry  I  am." 

"I  don't  believe  it  matters  much  one  way  or  the 
other,"  said  Diana,  but  a  certain  curt  quality  in  her 
voice  indicated  that  it  had  mattered  a  good  deal. 

"What  have  you  and  Tarn  been  doing  with  your- 
selves?" she  asked.  But  the  question  and  the  sudden 
charming  smile  that  went  with  it  were  Tarn  alone. 

"Well,  we  went  all  over  the  improvements  with 
Grandma,"  said  Manners,  "and  we  played  some  very 
violent  games ;  and  after  lunch  father  went  for  a  long 
walk,  and  when  he  came  back  we  played  more  games, 
oaly  very  quiet  ones.  And  then  you  came.  And  you  ? 
See  any  body  interesting  in  town  ?" 

"A  good  many  people  I  know;  but  I  don't  think 
that  you  would  describe  any  of  them  as  particularly 
interesting." 

She  rose  with  a  distinct  effort. 

56 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  57 

"My  legs  feel  like  lead,"  she  said.  But  in  climbing 
the  short  flight  of  stairs  to  the  upper  hall  she  did  not 
lean  against  the  arm  which  Manners  had  put  around 
her  waist.  It  was  almost,  he  felt  keenly,  as  if  she 
didn't  want  him  to  touch  her.  At  the  door  of  her  room 
she  turned. 

"You  don't  really  mind  about  dinner,  do  you?"  she 
asked.  "I'm  dead  to  the  world." 

"I  don't  see  why  you  should  be  so  tired,  Diana." 

The  pain  that  he  felt  showed  in  his  eyes,  and  Diana 
relented  toward  him. 

"Come  and  talk  to  me  after  dinner,"  she  said.  "I 
won't  be  half  so  tired  then." 

It  was  a  placid  talk,  during  which  Diana,  who  had 
been  reading  a  book  when  he  joined  her,  was  at  no 
pains  to  disguise  the  fact  that  she  was  very  sleepy. 
She  yawned  a  number  of  times,  laughed,  and  said  that 
she  was  sorry  but  that  she  really  couldn't  help  herself. 
He  tried  to  interest  her  in  the  idea  of  a  Newport  sum- 
mer and  suggested  that  she  take  up  the  question  of 
renting  a  cottage;  but  for  once  in  her  life  Diana 
seemed  to  be  rather  down  on  Newport.  It  was  a  life 
that  led  nowhere;  it  was  frightfully  expensive;  she 
had  lost  her  enthusiasm  for  late  hours  and  dancing. 

Secretly,  Manners  was  very  much  pleased.  He  had 
always  hoped  that  she  would  one  day  tire  of  gaiety  and 
extravagance,  and  of  all  other  false  values.  He  said 
that  he  was  pleased,  and  even  grateful. 

"But  you've  no  reason  to  be  grateful,"  said  Diana. 
"I've  changed  a  lot  since  you  went  away ;  that's  all.  I 
didn't  try  to  change.  It  just  happened;  so  there's  no 
occasion  for  gratitude.  I  can  no  more  help  being 


58  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

tired  of  parties  than  I  could  help  being  crazy  about 
them." 

"Well,  then,"  he  smiled,  "I'll  try  very  hard  not  to 
feel  grateful.  But  you  don't  mind  if  I  feel  glad,  do 
you?  It  looks  to  me  as  if  you  were  coming  across,  as 
if  you'd  made  up  your  mind  to  live  our  life  instead  of 
just  yours.  Even  if  you  don't  love  me,  we've  got  an 
awful  lot  to  fall  back  on,  to  look  back  on,  haven't  we  ?" 

She  nodded,  but  did  not  answer. 

"You  don't  really  believe  that  I  fell  in  love  with 
you  when  you  were  only  a  little  shaver,  do  you  ?" 

"Yes,  I  do,  Frank,"  she  said,  quickly.  "I  know 
how  long  you've  loved  me  and  how  much." 

"It  ought  to  count.  It  ought  to  make  life  together 
easier  for  you." 

"It's  the  only  thing  that  makes  life  together  pos- 
sible. You  think  that  I  always  do  just  as  I  please; 
and  that  I  have  no  consideration  for  your  wishes ;  but 
you  don't  know  how  often  and  often  I've  given  up 
things  to  please  you;  and  how  if  it  weren't  for  you  I 
might  not  be  any  good  at  all — if  I  am  any  good." 

He  knelt  by  the  bed,  and  took  her  in  his  arms  and 
laid  his  cheek  against  hers.  And  it  seemed  for  once 
as  if  she  was  glad  to  have  his  arms  about  her;  but 
though  he  held  his  breath  and  listened  he  could  detect 
no  quickening  in  the  action  of  her  heart.  Her  gladness 
was  that  of  a  child  who,  after  much  traipsing  and  dis- 
illusionment, has  found  a  safe  refuge. 

"From  now  on,"  he  said,  "things  will  be  better  with 
us.  You  are  going  to  be  patient  and  kind,  not  by  fits 
and  starts,  but  all  the  time." 

He  felt  her  shoulders  quiver.     He  drew  back  his 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  59 

head  to  look  at  her,  and  very  swiftly  she  turned  her 
face  away.  She  had  begun  to  cry.  He  clasped  her 
very  tightly. 

"Oh,  Diana,  darling,  what  does  ail  you  ?  Tell  your 
best  friend.  Tell  poor  old  Frank  who's  loved  you  so 
long  and  so  faithfully.  I  know  there's  something. 
Please  tell  me." 

But  she  only  cried  the  harder,  and  he  drew  back 
and  rose  to  his  feet,  his  heart  numb  with  a  sense  of 
catastrophe. 

"Diana,"  he  said,  "for  heaven's  sake  tell  me  what 
is  wrong!  I  know  you  too  well  to  believe  you  when 
you  say  there  is  nothing.  This  isn't  the  first  time 
you've  acted  like  this.  .  .  .  For  God's  sake,  dear,  tell 
me  what  is  wrong!" 

"Won't  you  please  leave  me  alone?"  she  said. 
"There's  nothing  wrong — nothing.  I'm  just  tired  to 
death,  and  the  least  thing  makes  me  cry.  .  .  ." 

"There  is  nothing  specifically  wrong?"  A  note  of 
sternness  had  come  into  his  voice. 

"There's  nothing.  And,  Frank,  I'll  be  different  to- 
morrow. I'll — I'll  do  anything  you  want  to-morrow 
— anything.  I'm  just  so  tired."  Once  more  his  voice 
was  all  gentleness. 

"Then  get  to  sleep  as  quick  as  ever  you  can,  dear." 
He  leaned  over  swiftly  and  kissed  her.  "And  sleep 
late." 

He  put  out  the  lights  in  her  room  and  closed  the 
door  after  him. 

He  found  his  mother-in-law  reading  the  evening 
papers  in  the  library.  She  was  in  a  cool  and  restful 
mood,  and  merely  the  casual,  natural  and  good-natured 


6o  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

tones  of  her  voice  soothed  him,  so  that  it  was  easily 
and  with  a  smile  that  he  said: 

"I'm  really  worried  about  Diana.  She  cries  at  the 
least  thing.  First  she  says  that  she's  a  reformed  char- 
acter, that  she's  going  to  be  at  home  more,  that  she's 
going  to  be  economical,  that  she's  sick  of  gaiety ;  and 
then,  instead  of  acting  the  happiness  that  reformed 
characters  are  supposed  to  feel,  she  cries." 

"It's  nothing  but  nerves,"  said  Mrs.  Langham. 
"Men  never  seem  to  understand  that  crying  is  not 
painful  to  a  woman,  but  one  of  her  greatest  luxuries. 
When  a  man's  nerves  get  on  edge,  there's  really  noth- 
ing he  can  do.  But  a  woman  can  always  cry.  We 
like  to  cry.  Diana  has  probably  made  up  her  mind  to 
turn  over  a  new  leaf ;  she  knows  that  it  is  going  to  be 
very  hard  for  her  to  do  that,  and  so  she  cries." 

"But  she  says  it  isn't  a  decision.  She  says  she  has 
simply  changed  and  that  she  deserves  no  credit." 

"It  doesn't  matter  a  bit,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "how 
the  change  came  about,  if  only  she  sticks  to  it.  Life 
will  be  very  much  more  peaceful  for  all  of  us.  .  .  ." 

"Excuse  me !"  said  Manners,  suddenly.  "I  thought 
I  heard  her  voice." 

He  stepped  quickly  into  the  hall,  and  listened.  He 
could  hear  her  voice  distinctly  now,  and  it  sounded 
cheerful.  She  was  talking  with  someone  on  the  tele- 
phone that  stood  at  the  head  of  her  bed. 

He  ran  quickly  up  the  stair ;  but  by  the  time  he  had 
knocked  on  the  door  she  had  finished  telephoning  and 
hung  up  the  receiver.  In  her  face  there  was  no  trace 
of  recent  tears.  There  was  color  in  her  cheeks,  and 
her  eyes  looked  very  bright  and  shining. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  61 

"I  heard  your  voice,"  said  Manners,  "and  came  up 
to  see  if  there  was  anything  the  matter." 

"It  was  Ogden  Fenn,"  she  said,  "to  ask  how  I 
felt.  I  saw  him  in  town,  and  he  said  I  looked  so  tired 
it  worried  him." 

"His  inquiries  seem  to  have  had  a  good  effect,"  said 
Manners,  a  little  dryly,  "for  you  look  quite  like  your- 
self again.  Now  do  leave  that  receiver  off,  so  nobody 
else  can  disturb  you,  and  go  to  sleep." 

The  alacrity  with  which  she  obeyed  pleased  him. 
And  he  went  downstairs  with  good  hopes  for  the  mor- 
row. But  it  annoyed  him  to  think  that  another  man's 
solicitude  should  afford  her  the  pleasure  which  his  own 
had  been  unable  to  supply. 

Her  thought  that  on  the  morrow  she  would  be  dif- 
ferent, that  she  would  refuse  him  nothing,  was  the 
happy  thought  upon  which  Manners  fell  asleep  that 
night.  And  all  the  next  morning  it  was  never  far  from 
his  mind.  It  was  a  rejuvenating  thought ;  and  brought 
him  with  a  high  spirit  into  whatever  plans  Tarn  had 
conceived  for  her  own  amusement. 

Diana's  long-hoped  for  reform  was  by  way  of  being 
accomplished.  The  resolution  seemed  to  have  cost  her 
clear;  but  she  had  made  it,  and  it  was  actually  to  go 
into  effect.  With  Tarn  in  tow,  he  was  in  and  out  of 
her  room  a  dozen  times  during  the  morning,  interrupt- 
ing; but  always  upon  some  pleasant  and  laughing  ex- 
cuse, her  housekeeping,  her  sewing,  her  note-writing, 
and  her  telephoning. 

After  luncheon,  for  the  day  had  turned  exceedingly 
pleasant,  they  went  for  a  long  walk,  and  for  the  first 
time  since  his  return  Diana  showed  a  desire  to  hear 


62  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

about  his  work  and  his  California  experiences.  Since 
these  latter  had  contained  much  that  was  odd  and  de- 
lightful, he  did  his  best  to  be  entertaining ;  to  interest 
Diana  and  to  make  her  laugh.  "It's  the  best  walk 
and  talk,"  he  told  himself,  "that  we've  had  together 
in  ever  so  long.  Even  if  she  doesn't  love  me,  she  is 
fond  of  me,  and  I  don't  bore  her." 

It  was  not  until  they  were  half-way  home  that  the 
conversation  took  a  more  serious  turn.  Manners  told 
her  that,  through  his  association  with  Californians,  so 
many  of  whom  were  Roman  Catholics,  he  had  come 
to  be  a  firm  believer  in  confession. 

"I've  often  thought  that  I'd  like  to  confess,"  said 
Diana,  "but  only  to  a  professional  confessor;  some- 
body who'd  forget  all  about  me  as  he  turned  away  to 
take  on  the  next  sinner.  But  it  must  take  a  lot  of 
practice  before  you  can  confess  properly.  I'm  sure 
that  I'd  be  always  trying  to  put  my  case  in  the  best 
possible  light." 

"If  you  were  going  to  confess,"  Manners  laughed, 
"I'd  like  to  substitute  for  the  priest.  I'd  give  anything 
I  own,  short  of  you  and  Tarn,  to  know  how  your  mind 
works,  and  what  you  really  think  is  wrong  and  what 
you  really  think  is  right." 

They  were  nearing  home  and  a  silence  had  fallen 
between  them.  Manners  had  determined  even  before 
the  walk  started  to  touch  on  certain  matters  germane 
to  the  new  leaf  which  Diana  seemed  to  be  turning, 
but  the  lack  of  any  opening  which  should  cause  his 
doing  so  to  seem  unforced  had  kept  him  hesitating, 
and  it  seemed  that  he  must  either  let  the  occasion  pass 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  63 

or  make  an  abrupt  plunge.  He  chose  the  latter  al- 
ternative. 

"Diana,"  he  said,  with  an  unsuccessful  effort  to 
make  his  voice  sound  casual,  "I  hope  you  are  really 
going  to  come  all  the  way  this  time." 

Diana  said  that  she  didn't  know  just  what  he  meant. 

"Well,"  he  explained,  "you've  hinted  that  things 
are  going  to  be  different.  You've  said  definitely  that 
you  are  going  to  take  better  care  of  Tarn,  and  that 
you  are  going  to  be  economical.  And  of  course  that's 
all  very  much  to  the  good;  but  there  are  other  things 
which  you  haven't  touched  on  at  all.  I'd  love  to  hear 
you  say  that  you  are  going  to  be  a  real  wife  to  me 
again,  and  that  you  are  going  to  live  our  life — Tarn's 
and  yours  and  mine — instead  of  just  yours." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  being  a  real  wife?" 

"You  know  as  well  as  I  do." 

This  was  an  uncomfortable  topic  for  them  both. 

"You  know,"  said  Diana,  in  a  small,  set  voice, 
"that  I  don't  feel  about  you  the  way  you  feel  about 
me,  and  so  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  want  me  to  have 
children.  It's  bad  enough  when  both  people  love  each 
other."  * 

"I  don't  see  why  you  should  be  so  much  more  fas- 
tidious than  hundreds  of  women  who've  had  the 
same  sort  of  education  and  bringing  up.  And  I  don't 
believe  it's  because  you  are  hyperfastidious  or  because 
you  don't  love  me.  I  believe  it's  because  you  hate  to 
be  bothered  for  a  long  time  about  any  one  particular 
thing.  If  it  didn't  take  more  than  twenty- four  hours, 
and  if  it  didn't  hurt,  you  wouldn't  object  to  having 
more  children.  Some  day  you'll  realize  that  there's 


64  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

just  one  highroad  to  happiness,  and  that's  —  doing 
right." 

They  walked  on  in  silence,  and  turned  in  at  their 
gate. 

"You  said  yesterday,"  Manners  broke  in  abruptly, 
"that  to-day  things  would  be  different;  that  you'd  do 
anything  I  asked  you.  You  didn't  mean  that?" 

"I  meant,"  said  Diana,  in  the  same  set  voice,  "that 
I'd  made  up  my  mind  to  do  what  seems  an  awful  lot 
to  me." 

He  looked  sideways  at  her  and  perceived  that  her 
expression  was  quite  stony.  And  he  realized  that  as 
usual,  when  their  minds  were  in  actual  contact,  she 
had  succeeded  in  making  him  feel  that  she,  and  not 
he,  was  the  aggrieved  one. 

"Well,  dear,"  he  said  with  resignation,  "do  the 
best  you  can." 

He  had  intended  to  bring  up  also  the  matter  of 
Diana's  friendships  with  people  who  were  not  his 
friends.  But  he  postponed  that.  The  moment  did 
not  seem  propitious. 

Diana  retlined  luxuriously.  She  had  bathed,  and 
she  was  resting  until  'it  should  be  time  to  dress  for 
dinner.  A  chair  stood  beside  her  lounge,  and  a  book 
lay  face  down  on  it.  She  looked  serene  and  com- 
fortable. 

Nou  Nou,  the  old  nurse,  whose  real  name  was  Mrs. 
Lawson,  could  be  heard  shrilly  hunting  for  Tarn.  It 
was  time  for  a  dirty  little  face  and  two  dirty  little 
hands  to  be  made  clean  and  shining  for  supper.  Tam 
who,  like  her  mother,  objected  to  being  on  time  for 
anything,  was  hiding.  Diana  listened  to  the  hunt  and 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  65 

smiled.  She  had  made  certain  resolutions  which 
seemed  to  her  beautiful  and  self-sacrificing.  She  was 
going  to  be  a  better  wife  to  Frank — no  children,  of 
course;  though  he  should  almost  have  his  will  with 
her  now  and  then.  She  would  take  far,  far  better 
care  of  Tam;  she  would  be  truly  economical.  She 
would  never  be  out  of  sorts  or  sulky  any  more  in 
this  difficult  and  sometimes  repulsive  course,  she 
would  be  sustained  by  that  exalted,  beautiful  and 
spiritual  thing  which  had  come  into  her  life.  Of 
course  she  could  never  be  really  happy ;  but  she  would 
be  sustained  in  all  the  sacrifices  that  she  was  going 
to  make. 

She  smiled  almost  happily  at  her  husband  when  he 
pushed  open  the  door  which  separated  her  room  from 
his.  He  had  come,  he  said,  to  apologize  for  having 
been  cross ;  but  somehow  the  fact  of  her  having  friends 
who  were  not  his  friends  always  rankled.  And  it 
troubled  him  and  frightened  him  too;  because  it  was 
just  that  which  had  led  them  into  their  first  great 
difficulties. 

He  spoke  very  gently,  as  if  he  was  reasoning  with 
a  child.  She  moved  a  little  so  that  he  could  sit  on  the 
edge  of  the  lounge. 

"You're  so  young  and  charming,"  he  said,  "that  you 
can't  help  inviting  trouble.  That's  what  frightens  me 
so.  I  couldn't  go  through  another  time  like  the  other. 
I  just  couldn't — couldn't.  Couldn't  you  promise  me 
not  to  play  round  with  people  I  disapprove  of — espe- 
cially men?  It  doesn't  make  me  exactly  jealous,  but  I 
have  the  feeling  all  the  time  that  you  are  playing  with 
fire,  and  that  you  are  going  to  get  burnt." 


66  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

The  soft  smiling  light  that  had  been  in  Diana's  eyes 
was  dying. 

"You  ought  not  to  have  any  men  come  to  the  apart- 
ment when  I'm  not  there ;  but  most  especially  men  that 
aren't  friends  of  mine,  too,  and  whom  I  don't  like  or 
trust.  You  can't  imagine  your  own  mother  doing  that 
sort  of  thing  when  she  was  your  age." 

"The  times  are  so  different,  Frank.  But  you  stay 
old-fashioned.  Why,  every  married  woman  I  know 
has  her  own  particular  friends,  and  feels  perfectly  free 
to  see  them  when  she  likes.  Please  don't  let's  get  into 
an  argument  about  that.  What  would  my  friends 
think  if  I  suddenly  dropped  them?" 

"They  wouldn't  feel  half  as  badly  as  I  did,  dear  " 
said  Manners,  "when  you  suddenly  dropped  me." 

"Oh,  Frank !  Can't  you  ever  forget  that  ?  I  wasn't 
really  grown  up.  And  it  was  just  a  brainstorm,  any- 
way." 

"You  remove  a  man  from  Paradise,  put  him  in  Pur- 
gatory, keep  him  there — and  think  he  ought  to  forget 
all  about  it!  ...  You've  never  even  said  that  you 
were  sorry,  or  that  you  regretted  the  lost  Paradise 
that  we  used  to  live  in.  You've  never  even  asked  me 
to  forgive  you  for  hurting  me  so.  You  never  offered 
any  reparation.  All  you  did  was  to  forget  What's-his- 
name  very  promptly,  and  to  discover  that  you  had  a 
life  of  your  own  to  lead,  a  dangerous,  unsettled  life, 
and  to  proceed  to  lead  it.  Naturally  I'm  afraid  of 
repetition." 

"O  Lord,"  said  Diana,  "I  thought  we  had  every- 
thing satisfactorily  settled,  but  it  seems  not." 

"There  was  a  man,"   said  Manners,   "whom  you 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  67 

have  forgotten,  but  I  shall  always  hate  him.  And  now 
because  I  am  afraid  that  there  will  be  another  man 
whom  you  will  forget,  but  whom  I  shall  always  have 
to  hate,  you  consider  me  unreasonable  and  old- 
fashioned.  A  cat  that  has  once  sat  on  a  hot  stove  sits 
on  no  more  stoves,  whether  they're  hot  or  cold.  Per- 
haps you  have  a  right  to  live  your  own  life,  Diana. 
God  only  knows.  But  surely  you  have  no  right  to 
make  your  own  husband,  who  has  loved  you  since  you 
were  a  little  child,  and  been  faithful  to  you  in  word 
and  deed — surely  you  haven't  the  right  to  make  him 
live  in  fear." 

"You  are  always  talking  about  your  wonderful  love 
for  me,  Frank;  but  sometimes  it  seems  as  if  you  did 
nothing  but  scold  me  and  reproach  me.  .  .  .  Just 
now  I  thought  you  were  coming  to  make  love  to  me ; 
but  instead  you  just  say  things  to  me  that  make  me 
feel  cold  and  resentful." 

It  is  true  that  he  had  come  with  love-making  in  his 
heart;  and  passion.  But  though  desire  still  coursed 
hotly  in  his  veins,  he  knew  very  well  that  the  moment 
in  which  he  might  have  hoped  to  wake  a  reciprocal 
desire  had  passed.  And  somehow  Diana  knew  that 
he  knew  this. 

"Diana,"  he  said  presently,  "it's  been  a  devilish  hard 
resolution  to  make;  but  I've  succeeded  after  many 
attempts.  For  Tarn's  sake,  and  of  course  for  my  own, 
I  want  people  to  think  that  you  are  my  faithful  and 
affectionate  wife;  but  inside  this  house  you  shall  be 
free  as  air.  I  shall  ask  nothing  of  you  but  common 
politeness,  you  may  lock  the  door  between  our  rooms, 
and  you  need  never  turn  the  key  again  as  long  as  you 


68  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

live.  You've  taken  your  love  away  from  me;  you've 
taken  the  home  I  wanted  away  from  me ;  you've  taken 
the  son  I  wanted  away  from  me.  And  I  surrender. 
On  every  point  but  one  I  throw  up  my  hands.  You  are 
not  to  have  friends  that  aren't  my  friends.  You  are 
not  to  behave  as  if  you  were  not  married.  I'm  giving 
up  practically  everything;  and  it's  only  fair  that  you 
should  give  up  a  little  something  too." 

"I  should  think  you  could  trust  me,"  she  said  hotly, 
"not  to  do  anything  that  your  wife  shouldn't  do." 

"I  did.  And  you  got  yourself  thoroughly  talked 
about,  and  you  crucified  me.  Long  before  you  got 
infatuated  with  What's-his-name,  I  begged  you  to  stop 
seeing  so  much  of  him.  But  you  would  go  your  own 
way.  You  knew  best.  You  still  know  best;  experi- 
ence teaches  you  nothing.  And  you  still  insist  on  go- 
ing your  own  way,  which  leads  to  inevitable  hell  for 
you,  and  to  a  deepening  of  the  purgatory  in  which, 
for  no  fault  of  my  own — so  help  me  God,  for  no  fault 
of  my  own ! — you  force  me  to  live." 

He  rose  abruptly,  and  hurried  to  the  door,  almost 
as  if  he  was  escaping  from  something.  Then  he 
turned : 

"This  nonsense  about  other  men  has  got  to  stop!" 
he  said  loudly.  A  moment  later  he  had  closed  the 
door  behind  him,  not  any  too  gently,  and  could  be 
heard  shouting  for  Tam. 

A  closely  hugged  little  daughter  acted  upon  Man- 
ners like  a  hot  poultice  and  drew  the  rancor  from  his 
heart.  And  when  Diana  came  down  for  dinner  she 
found  them  playing  at  an  extremely  simple  game  of 
cards.  Mrs.  Langham  was  watching  them  over  the 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  69 

top  of  the  evening  paper.  She  always  had  some  better 
use  for  the  evening  paper  than  reading  it.  She  used 
it  as  a  curb  upon  conversation,  as  a  lookout  from  be- 
hind which  she  might  watch  faces  without  appearing 
to,  to  keep  off  the  glow  of  the  fire,  to  kill  flies. 

Her  hand  resting  lightly  on  her  husband's  shoulder, 
Diana  stood  for  a  while  and  watched  the  progress  of 
the  card  game. 

"Tarn  begins  to  show  symptoms  of  card  sense,"  said 
Manners.  "She  gets  it  from  you  and  your  mother. 
Also  she  is  lucky,  and  she's  giving  Father  a  good 
trimming." 

"Also,"  said  Diana,  "it  is  long  past  bedtime — as 
much  as  ten  minutes." 

Tarn  said  that  she  thought  all  the  clocks  in  the  house 
were  wrong.  And  Manners  said  that  that  was  another 
notion  which  she  had  inherited  directly  from  her 
mother. 

"The  only  thing  Muzzer  never  misses,"  he  said,  "is 
the  train  for  town." 

And  he  wished  at  once  that  he  had  said  no  such 
thing.  Diana  hated  sarcasms  and  what  she  called 
"references."  But  she  accepted  this  one  with  a  toler- 
ant smile,  and  said  sweetly: 

"I  may  make  an  exception  to-morrow,"  she  said, 
"because  I'm  proposing  to  catch  a  very  early  one." 

Manners  dropped  the  five  cards  which  after  a  heroic 
struggle  Tarn  had  succeeded  in  dealing  him,  and 
looked  up  into  his  wife's  face. 

"I've  come  home  to  see  you,"  he  said,  "and  you 
spend  all  your  time  in  town.  Now  please  do  tell  me 
what  has  happened  to  take  you  in  again  to-morrow?" 


70  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "things  that  have  to  be  done,  and 
that  I  haven't  been  able  to  do.  We  can  discuss  it  later 
if  you  like." 

He  did  not  enjoy  the  tone  of  her  voice.  It  hinted 
at  a  great  repression.  Mrs.  Langham  had  not  missed 
this  hint  either.  Her  eyes  could  no  longer  be  seen 
over  the  top  of  the  evening  paper. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

VERY  soon  after  dinner  she  wished  them  good-night 
and  withdrew.  She  had  divined  that  Manners  was 
most  impatient  for  his  wife's  explanation  of  her  an- 
nounced trip  to  town ;  and  knowing  what  she  knew,  or 
rather  fearing  what  she  feared,  she  preferred  to  be 
out  of  sight  and  out  of  sound.  Her  progress  up  the 
stairs  to  her  room  was  slow  and  halting.  Her  knees 
felt  unaccountably  loose  and  weak.  Manners  had 
talked  very  little  during  dinner.  And  she  knew  that 
he  was  smarting  with  the  sense  of  Diana's  injustice  to 
him  and  that  his  temper  was  rising.  Diana  knew  this 
also. 

He  began  abruptly:  "How  about  this  early  train 
business?" 

"Do  you  think,"  she  said  quietly,  "that  you  make 
the  house  so  pleasant  for  me  that  I  want  to  stay  in  it 
more  than  I  have  to?  I've  told  you  that  I  was  going 
to  try  to  do  better;  but  you  do  nothing  but  scold  me 
and  find  fault  with  me,  and  rake  up  things  that  are 
past  and  dead,  and  that  ought  to  be  done  with.  I'm 
going  to  town  because  I  can't  stand  it  here.  I  can't 
stand  it!" 

He  had  not  anticipated  any  such  outbreak.  The 
feeling  which  it  aroused  in  him  was  not  resentment, 
but  a  sickening  fear. 

"I  shall  see  friends,"  she  flung  out,  "who  are  fond 

.71 


72  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

of  me  and  true  to  me;  and  who  give  me  the  strength 
and  courage  to  face  what  I  have  to  face." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "the  kind  of  friends  who  have  made 
all  the  trouble  between  us !  Is  it  friends  you  are  going 
to  see  to-morrow,  or  a  friend?  A  friend  who  has 
brought  something  so  noble  and  spiritual  into  your  life 
that  you  can  no  longer  bear  to  face  any  of  your  duties 
as  a  wife  or  as  a  mother?" 

She  had  risen  and  walked  the  length  of  the  room 
and  back,  her  brow  drawn  with  pain  and  her  hands 
so  tightly  interlocked  that  the  knuckles  were  smooth 
and  white,  like  bones.  Manners  was  growing  reckless. 

"Do  you  hate  me,  Diana?  You  act  sometimes  as  if 
you  hated  me." 

"Do  you  think  I'd  be  here  if  I  hated  you?"  she  an- 
swered ;  but  in  her  eyes  there  was  nothing  but  a  kind 
of  hunted  antagonism.  "You'd  have  seen  the  last  of 
me  long  ago  if  I  hated  you." 

"Then  for  God's  sake  what  is  the  matter  ?" 

"There  is  nothing  the  matter,"  she  said.  But  he 
knew  that  she  was  lying.  And  she  knew  that  he  knew. 
She  had  the  expression  of  a  bound  and  helpless  animal 
that  expects  to  be  struck.  Manners  rose  to  his  feet. 
He  was  trembling  all  over  with  fear. 

"You  must  tell  me,"  he  said.  "You've  got  to  tell 
me." 

The  anger  had  oozed  out  of  him;  he  fairly  clamored 
for  her  confidence. 

"Nothing  can  be  worse  than  not  knowing.  I  am 
your  friend,  your  oldest  friend.  I  think  I'm  your  best 
friend.  Nothing's  so  bad  that  it  can't  be  put  right. 
For  heaven's  sake  put  us  on  a  square  and  honest  basis. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  73 

Don't  be  afraid  of  me.  I  love  you.  If  you're  in 
trouble  I'll  do  anything,  anything  in  my  power,  to 
help  you — anything  that  love  and  tenderness  can  sug- 
gest!" 

She  had  begun  to  cry,  her  face  all  puckered  like  a 
child's,  and  she  wailed: 

"It  wouldn't  do  any  good  to  tell  you!  It  wouldn't 
do  any  good !" 

"You  must  tell  me !    You  must  tell  me !" 

And  suddenly  she  told  him ;  but  she  took  three  paces 
first,  three  involuntary  paces,  perhaps,  which  made  the 
distance  between  them  greater.  It  was  as  if  she 
dreaded  some  awful  outburst  which  must  follow  hard 
upon  her  confession.  She  sobbed  loudly  as  she  spoke: 

"I  am  in  love  with  another  man!" 

The  face  which  he  loved  so,  the  woe-begone  little 
face  at  once  terrified  and  brave,  moved  Manners  as 
he  had  been  moved  but  once  before  in  all  his  life.  All 
side-issues  were  erased  from  his  mind  as  if  by  a  light- 
ning stroke.  Tarn,  himself.  Only  one  thing  was 
clear:  that  his  Diana  was  in  frightful  grief  and 
trouble,  and  that  he  must  comfort  her.  It  was  one  of 
his  great  moments  when,  an  impulse  wholly  noble  and 
unselfish  driving  him,  he  acted  upon  it.  Diana,  whose 
streaming  eyes  had  never  left  his  face,  saw  the  grim 
drawn  lines  of  it  break  and  soften  into  a  smile  of  such 
tenderness  and  sweetness  and  compassion  that  at  once 
the  weight  upon  her  heart  seemed  lightened. 

"Come  right  to  me!"  He  opened  his  arms  to  her, 
his  voice  broken  with  tenderness.  "Come  right  to  me ! 
Why,  you  poor  child,  it's  all  right.  I'm  so  glad  you've 
told  me.  Why,  come  here!  It's  just  as  if  you  were 


74  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

another  daughter.  Oh,  you  poor  child!  You  poor 
child!" 

Very  slowly  at  first  but  with  increasing  momentum 
she  had  been  drawn  toward  him.  It  was  as  if  the 
tenderness  which  emanated  from  him  had  arms  and 
hands  with  which  to  draw  her  until,  with  a  sudden  last 
quickening,  she  was  in  his  arms.  So  a  little  ship, 
almost  foundered  in  a  storm,  slips  into  the  keeping 
of  some  safe  bay. 

There  was  silence  now.  He  patted  her  shoulders; 
he  stroked  her  hair.  She  smiled  through  her  tears. 
Oh,  how  good  was  confession!  How  very  good!  It 
hurt  her  so  to  lie,  and  now  there  would  be  no  more 
lying.  It  hurt  her  so  to  be  false;  but  now  the  truth 
was  out  and  she  could  be  true. 

But  for  Manners  the  great  moment  had  passed. 
Action  had  been  followed  by  reaction.  His  mind, 
cleansed  of  all  but  the  once  chivalrous  purpose,  began 
now  to  crowd  with  complexities. 

"Is  he  rich,  darling?"  he  asked. 

Between  asking  this  somewhat  abrupt  and  surpris- 
ing question  and  receiving  Diana's  answer,  Manners's 
mind  worked  very  quickly.  It  was  a  sudden  over- 
mastering desire  to  be  once  and  forever  free  from  all 
pain  and  care  that  had  impelled  him  to  ask  the  ques- 
tion, and  while  the  answer  was  pending  he  was  able, 
though  that  answer  actually  came  very  quickly,  to  im- 
agine every  detail  of  what  he  would  do  if  that  answer 
was  in  the  affirmative.  He  saw  himself  giving  Diana  a 
parting  squeeze,  a  parting  pat,  leaving  her  without 
excuse,  running  lightly  up  the  stair  to  his  room,  taking 
the  the  .45  automatic  from  his  bureau  drawer,  putting 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  75 

the  muzzle  quickly  in  his  mouth  and  quickly  pulling 
the  trigger.  She  would  have  the  man  she  wanted.  He 
would  have  peace.  The  thought  of  being  so  soon  dead 
seemed  perfectly  beautiful  to  him.  Diana's  answer 
brought  him  back  to  his  senses. 

"He  hasn't  any  money  at  all,"  she  said. 

"Then,"  said  Manners  instantly,  "I'll  have  to  keep 
on  working  very  hard  so  there'll  be  plenty  of  alimony." 

He  had  accepted  the  idea  of  divorce  without  ques- 
tion. 

"Who  is  he?"  he  asked. 

"Ogden  Fenn,"  she  said,  "and  oh,  Frank,  dear,  his 
love  is  so  wonderful.  It's  not  what  you  think.  We 
weren't  going  to  tell  you ;  and  I  was  going  to  be  better 
about  Tarn  and  you;  and  you  weren't  ever  to  know; 
and  we  were  only  going  to  see  each  other  once  in  a 
while." 

Manners  laughed  indulgently. 

"The  idea  of  an  honest  little  person  like  you  carry- 
ing around  a  load  of  deceit  like  that  all  the  rest  of 
your  born  days  makes  me  laugh,"  he  said.  "I  knew 
there  was  something  wrong  almost  as  soon  as  I  clapped 
eyes  on  you.  So  Mr.  Fenn  is  the  lucky  dog.  I  don't 
mind  telling  you  that  I  envy  him.  Come  and  sit  down 
on  the  sofa  and  we'll  talk  things  over." 

They  might  easily  have  been  mistaken  for  a  pair  of 
lovers.  His  arm  was  around  her,  and  she  leaned  con- 
fidently against  him. 

"I'm  so  relieved  you've  taken  it  like  this,  Frank," 
she  said.  "I'm  so  glad  I've  told  you.  I'm  so  glad !" 

"It's  too  late  to  get  hold  of  Fenn  to-night,"  said  her 
husband.  "But  I  suppose  you  could  get  him  to  come 


76  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

to  the  apartment  some  time  to-morrow  morning.  I'll 
go  to  town  with  you.  But  is  the  very  early  train  essen- 
tial? I'll  have  a  little  talk  with  him  first,  and  then 
we'll  all  three  have  a  talk  together." 

And  all  the  time  he  talked  he  kept  wishing  that 
Fenn  was  rich,  so  that  he,  Manners,  could  be  comfort- 
ably dead.  He  had  been  through  one  period  of  great 
agony  with  Diana ;  and  he  did  not  yet  feel  man  enough 
to  face  another. 

It  was  curious  that  the  question  of  just  what  Tarn's 
rights  and  interests  were  in  the  matter  had  not  yet 
presented  itself  to  him.  His  first  thoughts  had  been 
entirely  concerned  with  Diana.  His  second  thoughts 
were  almost  entirely  concerned  with  himself. 

The  comforting  tones  of  his  voice  and  the  comfort- 
ing touch  of  his  hand  had  ceased  to  be  inspired.  They 
had  become  mechanical. 

It  was  wonderful  how  she  clung  to  him  when  they 
were  saying  good-night.  It  was  not  at  all  as  if  she 
were  planning  to  leave  him  in  the  lurch,  and  to  chuck 
aside,  like  an  outworn  garment,  the  devotion  and 
faithfulness  of  all  his  grown  years.  It  was  more  as 
if  she  feared  that  she  were  losing  him,  as  if  she  were 
trying  to  turn  once  more  toward  her  a  love  that  had 
turned  away.  But  Manners  knew  very  well  that  it 
was  not  the  woman  in  her  that  clung  to  him,  but  the 
child.  And  knowing  this  the  tightening  pressure  with 
which  he  in  turn  held  her  asked  nothing  but  the  right 
to  shield  and  protect.  His  heart  registered  fewer  beats 
than  usual  instead  of  more.  He  did  not  so  much  as 
kiss  her  cheek,  but  only  pressed  against  it  with  his  own. 

His  thoughts  traveled  in  great  circles.     His  very 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  77 

soul  yearned  over  her  and  forgave  her.  His  intellect 
judged  her  and  found  her  wanting.  And  the  faith 
that  he  had  in  her  shook  in  its  boots. 

"She  can't  do  it!"  he  thought.  .  .  .  "She  will  do 
it!  She  will  see  things  clearly,  and  then  she  will  do 
right.  .  .  .  She  will  have  her  own  way  as  usual,  and 
everybody  will  have  to  suffer.  She  will  have  to  suffer 
too.  .  .  .  She  can't  do  it.  ...  She  will  do  it.  The 
grounds  will  be  desertion.  Think  of  me  deserting 
Diana!" 

He  bit  back  an  hysterical  impulse  to  laugh  out  loud. 
It  would  be  foolish  to  suppose  that  Diana  did  not  in 
anyway  realize  the  enormity  of  the  crime  she  had  com- 
mitted against  her  husband.  But  in  the  forgiving 
pressure  of  that  husband's  arms  even  her  pricking  con- 
science was  drugged  into  a  temporary  peace. 

And  indeed  it  was  a  little  as  if  her  whole  being  had 
been  drugged  into  quiescence,  and  all  her  emotions. 
For  in  five  minutes  after  she  had  turned  out  her  lights 
she  was  sound  asleep.  Many  times  during  the  night 
Manners  stealthily  opened  the  door  that  was  between 
their  rooms  and  listened.  He  could  hear  no  sound.  So 
quietly  she  slept  you  might  have  thought  her  dead. 

"She  isn't  even  dreaming  now,"  he  thought.  "If 
she  isn't  faithful  to  me  now,  at  least  she  isn't  faithless. 
If  she  doesn't  love  me  now,  neither  does  she  love  him. 
If  she  is  never  to  be  happy,  may  Almighty  God  at  least 
reserve  for  her  many  thousands  of  nights  like  this — 
long  periods  of  oblivion  and  peace." 

But  Manners  was  already  very  sorry  that  he  had 
spoken  of  giving  Diana  the  divorce  which  she  imag- 
ined would  make  her  happy. 


78  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"She  will  get  over  Perm,"  he  thought,  "as  she  got 
over  What's-his-name,  as  she  got  over  me.  There'll 
be  a  hard  time;  she'll  hate  me  for  a  while.  But  she 
sha'n't  ruin  herself  and  me  for  a  crazy,  self-indulgent 
impulse." 

The  thought  gave  him  confidence  and  courage.  But 
these  were  not  unmixed  with  pessimism  and  fore- 
boding. 

"Suppose,"  he  thought,  "that  it  should  turn  out  to 
be  the  real  thing — the  "real  thing  with  both  of  them  ?" 

He  found  that  he  was  trembling  from  head  to  foot. 
The  night  was  cold.  The  fire  in  his  room  had  gone 
out.  And  those  inner  fires  which  might  have  sus- 
tained him  through  a  colder  night  than  this  had  noth- 
ing to  feed  on — nothing. 

"And  my  wife,"  he  thought,  "is  there  in  the  next 
room.  My  wife !  And  the  door  is  unlocked.  But  just 
because  this  world  contains  a  shy,  featureless,  colorless 
individual  named  Fenn,  she  is  tabu — she  is  sacred! 
Even  if  I  were  freezing  to  death  I  must  not  turn  back 
the  warm  sheets  and  blankets  that  cover  her  and  lie 
down  by  her  side. 

He  stood  trembling,  at  times  violently.  And  then 
suddenly,  as  at  the  touch  of  a  conjurer's  wand,  his 
mind  revolted,  anger  swept  him,  and  he  exclaimed  in 
a  voice  harsh  and  ugly: 

"Almighty !    Is  there  no  justice  in  this  world !" 

The  next  morning,  when  Diana  asked  him  what 
sort  of  a  night  he  had  had,  he  said  carelessly,  "Oh, 
pretty  good,  thanks."  But  Diana,  when  he  returned 
the  question,  answered  in  the  patient  voice  of  one  who 
suffers  cheerfully,  "Just  so-so." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  79 

And  soon  after  breakfast  they  went  to  town  to  talk 
with  Ogden  Fenn. 

Diana  was  under  the  impression  that  she  had  not 
had  a  good  night ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  she  had  slept 
very  well.  The  chivalrous  burst  of  generosity  and  ten- 
derness with  which  Manners  had  received  her  confes- 
sion had  affected  her  nerves  like  a  narcotic. 

She  had  been  living  in  a  dream  that  was  half  rap- 
ture and  half  nightmare.  And  the  most  nightmarish 
episodes  were  those  in  which,  having  discovered  the 
true  state  of  affairs,  her  husband  figured.  It  was  not 
as  if  she  was  asking  him  to  go  through  hell  for  the  first 
time.  She  had  put  him  through  once  already,  and  he 
knew  perfectly  well  what  hell  was  like.  It  seemed  in- 
credible that  he  could  be  facing  a  second  experience 
with  such  cheerful  fortitude.  Did  he  realize,  she  won- 
dered, that  this  time  there  was  no  upward  path  leading 
out  of  the  hell  into  which  she  had  plunged  him?  Did 
he  realize  that  his  love  was  not  as  that  other  love  had 
been?  Did  he  realize  that  her  love  for  Fenn  was  no 
mere  sentimentalized  gust  of  passion,  but  an  eternal 
edifice  founded  upon  every  strength  in  her  being? 
This  time  her  love  was  spiritual  altogether.  It  could 
never  grow  stale,  wither  nor  change. 

This  time  Manners  was  not  merely  to  be  knocked 
over  from  an  ambush  and  somewhat  frolicsomely  tor- 
tured by  the  wayside.  But  upon  a  cross,  firmly 
planted  like  a  telegraph  pole,  he  was  to  be  nailed  for 
the  rest  of  his  time  on  earth.  It  would  not  be  possible 
to  separate  her  from  Fenn.  They  had  plumbed  every 
contingency.  They  would  fight  to  lie  upon  the  right 
side  of  the  blanket,  and  be  respectable  in  the  eyes  of 


80  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

the  world;  but  if  the  worst  came  to  the  worst  they 
would  make  the  wrong  side  of  the  blanket  do,  for  love 
like  theirs  was  stronger  than  life,  stronger  than  death, 
and  far,  far  stronger  than  justice. 

At  the  station,  going  to  town  by  the  same  train, 
were  many  people  whom  they  knew  more  or  less  well. 
And  Manners  marveled  at  the  smiling  naturalness  with 
which  Diana  greeted  them.  He  would  have  marveled 
at  his  own  smiling  naturalness  if  he  could  have  known 
how  smiling  and  natural  it  really  seemed.  He  gave 
the  impression  of  a  man  upon  whom  was  no  shadow 
whatever.  And  when  Harry  Crowninshield  suddenly 
announced  in  his  boisterous  way  "All  bets  are  off! 
Frank's  still  in  love  with  his  wife,"  he  had  been  able 
to  answer  with  an  equal  zeal  and  boisterousness: 
"Why  shouldn't  I  be?  We've  only  been  married  ten 
years." 

It  was  astonishing  how  few  people  knew  that  there 
had  ever  been  any  real  trouble  between  them.  They 
were  often  referred  to  even  by  their  closest  friends,  as 
models  of  all  the  domestic  virtues.  It  was  well  known 
that  Diana  indulged  herself  with  occasional  flirta- 
tions, but  Manners  was  supposed  to  be  genuinely 
amused  by  these,  and  Diana  was  supposed  to  engi- 
neer them  from  beginning  to  end  with  her  tongue  in 
her  cheek. 

Manners  was  by  no  means  unhappy.  He  had  not 
stormed  or  raved  when  Diana  had  confessed  to  him. 
On  the  contrary  he  had  been  very  generous  and  in  this 
knowledge  found  a  certain  complacency.  He  could 
have  been  proud  of  himself  with  better  reason  if  his 
generosity  had  been  coldly  calculated,  instead  of  being 


8i 

forced  from  him  by  an  irresistible  impulse.  For  the 
rest  his  mind  and  his  feelings  were  in  a  state  of  be- 
wilderment, of  chaos,  in  which  the  elements  had  not 
yet  crystallized  into  passions  or  judgments.  He  looked 
forward  with  perfect  calmness  to  his  interview  with 
Fenn.  He  even  thought  that  it  would  be  a  good  idea 
to  make  friends  with  Fenn.  And  in  the  uncrystallized 
state  of  his  feelings  he  imagined  himself  perfectly 
capable  of  doing  so. 

"He  must  be  a  gentleman,"  Manners  thought,  "or 
else  Diana  couldn't  possibly  have  fallen  in  love  with 
him.  And  he  must  be  a  decent  sort  or  else  I'd  be 
hunting  him  with  a  gun.  At  the  same  time  he  doesn't 
belong  to  the  same  world  that  we  do,  and  it  ought 
not  to  be  hard  to  get  around  him  and  manage 
him." 

If  Manners  had  any  definite  plan  it  was  this:  To 
show  Fenn  the  impracticability  of  the  affair  going  on 
indefinitely,  and  to  induce  him,  wholly  for  Diana's 
sake,  to  break  with  her;  not  suddenly  and  drastically, 
of  course,  but  by  degrees.  He  would  by  no  means 
forbid  them  to  see  each  other.  But  with  Fenn's  con- 
nivance they  should  see  each  other  less  and  less,  until 
the  time  should  be  ripe  for  a  definite  and  complete 
break. 

"That,"  thought  Manners,  "is  what  I'd  do  if  I'd 
got  myself  into  the  mess  that  Fenn's  in,  and  I'd  do  it 
without  any  urging  from  the  husband." 

They  reached  their  apartment  a  few  minutes  before 
the  time  at  which  Fenn  had  promised  to  meet  them 
there,  and  because  the  place  was  small  and  the  parti- 
tions thin,  Hilda,  Diana's  maid,  was  at  once  de- 


82  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

spatched  upon  an  interminable  round  of  errands. 
Diana  had  made  out  the  list  in  the  train. 

"How  are  we  going  to  stage-manage  this  affair?" 
Manners  asked.  "Do  we  both  see  Fenn  at  once,  or 
do  you  see  him  first,  or  do  I?"  He  spoke  laughingly, 
and  Diana,  keen  and  full  of  life  at  the  immediate 
prospect  of  seeing  her  lover,  and  hearing  the  sound  of 
the  voice  that  had  grown  so  dear,  laughingly  an- 
swered: 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "I'll  let  him  in  and  turn  him  over 
to  you,  and  then  I'll  go  in  the  front  room  and  twiddle 
my  thumbs  till  I'm  sent  for.  And  then  I  suppose  he'll 
want  to  see  me  alone.  ..." 

At  this  moment  the  doorbell  rang,  and  Diana 
darted  into  the  hall  with  an  eagerness  that  stabbed 
her  husband  like  a  knife.  He  heard  the  sound  of  the 
door  opening  and  of  their  mingled  voices.  And  then 
there  was  a  silence.  And  Manners  knew  as  surely  as 
if  God  had  told  him  that  during  the  silence  his  wife 
was  giving  her  lips  to  another  man. 

He  had  anticipated  no  such  outrageous  breach  of 
good  manners  and  of  common  decency.  And  the  im- 
perturbable calm  of  which  he  imagined  himself  to  be 
possessed  was  darkly  and  almost  violently  ruffled. 

During  the  next  half  hour  Manners  found  himself 
looking  oftener  at  Fenn's  mouth  than  at  any  other  part 
of  him.  But  he  made  no  other  outward  manifestation 
of  his  real  feelings.  '  He  seemed  more  like  a  good 
friend  of  Diana's  than  her  outraged  husband. 

Manners  began  the  interview  with  a  smile  and  an 
offer  of  cigaYets.  At  the  same  time  he  said: 

"I  hope  you  are  not  as  embarrassed  as  I  am." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  83 

Fenn  gave  no  evidence  of  embarrassment,  though 
he  felt  himself  to  be  in  an  exceedingly  trying  situation. 
He  accepted  a  cigaret,  gave  thanks  for  it,  and  lighted 
it.  He  was  a  taller,  better-proportioned  and  alto- 
gether a  more  significant  man  than  Manners  had 
thought.  He  had  a  good  nose  and  very  fine  teeth. 
Like  most  men  who  have  been  brought  up  in  the  West 
he  was  a  shade  too  well-dressed.  The  shyness  and 
lack  of  ease  which  he  had  showed  at  their  first  meeting 
seemed  to  have  been  of  the  moment.  His  voice  and 
his  whole  manner  were  very  easy  now  and  very  quiet. 

"I'm  distressed  by  what  has  happened,"  said  Man- 
ners. "But  I  should  not  be  honest  if  I  said  that  I  was 
surprised.  You  are  not  my  wife's  first  affair." 

"She  has  told  me,"  said  Fenn. 

"And  that  being  the  case,  I  am  not  as  badly  fright- 
ened as  I  might  be.  My  wife  will  get  over  this." 
Fenn  said  nothing. 

"Before,"  said  Manners,  "having  no  precedent  to 
go  on,  I  insisted  on  a  sudden  and  drastic  separation.  I 
said  that  they  mustn't  see  each  other  any  more  or 
communicate.  Diana  demanded  one  final  interview 
(women  always  do,  I  imagine)  and  of  course  I  had  to 
give  in  to  that.  I  imagine,  but  I  am  not  sure,  that 
Diana  asked  the  man  to  run  away  with  her,  and  that 
he,  having  some  faint  residue  of  common  sense,  and 
some  faint  regard  for  the  integrity  of  his  skin,  refused. 
Anyway  they  said  good-by.  And  three  months  later 
the  love  that  Diana  had  had  for  that  man  was  as  dead 
as  a  doornail.  But  she  had  tasted  liberty,  and  since 
that  time  she  has  not  been  a  very  satisfactory  wife. 
But  she  has  been  a  good  mother.  She  hasn't  been 


84  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

consistent  in  her  loves  or  in  her  friendships.  Those 
come  and  go.  But  she  has  been  a  mighty  good  mother, 
and  a  wise  mother.  That  is  the  one  trait  in  Diana 
which  we  have  any  reason  to  believe  permanent.  She 
will  get  over  caring  for  you,  just  as  she  got  over  caring 
for  me,  and  just  as  she  got  over  caring  for  the  other 
fellow.  This  is  not  open  to  argument.  If  she  stops 
seeing  you,  she  will  forget  all  about  you.  I  have  been 
in  love  with  her  for  twenty  years,  ever  since  she  was  a 
little  girl.  I  have  lived  with  her  for  ten  years,  and  I 
know  what  I  am  talking  about." 

"I  hope,"  said  Fenn  very  quietly,  "that  you  are  not 
going  to  tell  me  that  I  mustn't  see  her  any  more.  She 
is  very  unhappy  and  her  nerves  are  in  very  bad  shape. 
It  isn't  easy  for  her  to  hurt  you." 

"I  am  not  going  to  tell  anybody  to  do  anything. 
I  want  this  affair  to  die,  of  course,  and  the  sooner  the 
better.  But  I  am  not  going  to  kill  it.  I  made  that 
mistake  the  other  time.  There  is  no  need  of  repeating 
that  mistake.  Diana's  feeling  for  you  is  too  violent. 
It  will  die  of  exhaustion." 

Fenn  made  no  comment,  but  he  looked  a  little 
sceptical. 

"If  it  doesn't,"  said  Manners,  "if  it  doesn't  die  of 
its  own  accord,  why  you,  of  course,  are  the  person 
who  must  kill  it.  I  take  it  for  granted  that  you  are 
not  thinking  of  yourself,  any  more  than  I  am  thinking 
of  myself,  and  that  what  we  both  want  is  Diana's 
happiness." 

"I  have  said  right  along  that  I  thought  Diana's  best 
chance  of  happiness  was  to  stick  by  you  and  Tarn." 

The  man  was  so  obviously  sincere  that  a  real  weight 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  85 

was  lifted  from  Manners's  spirits,  but  he  couldn't  help 
saying:  "It's  a  great  pity  that  you  allowed  a  situation- 
to  develop  in  which  so  obvious  a  thing  as  that  ever 
had  to  be  discussed  at  all.  But  I  don't  blame  you  too 
much.  You  don't  look  to  me  in  the  least  like  a  man 
who  deliberately  wrecks  another  man's  happiness. 
And  I  am  convinced  that  you  would  not  have  made 
love  to  my  wife  if  she  hadn't  wanted  you  to." 

"I  hope  you  believe  that  I  do  love  Diana." 

"That  is  why  I  count  on  you  to  do  what  is  best  for 
her,  without  considering  yourself." 

"I  am  very  grateful  to  you  for  taking  all  this  so  sen- 
sibly and  calmly.  Your  position  isn't  at  all  pleasant." 

"The  first  time  I  was  in  this  position,  I  thought 
almost  entirely  in  terms  of  pistols.  But  the  other 
fellow,  you  see,  had  taken  Diana's  love  from  me.  You 
haven't  done  that.  I  had  already  lost  it  when  you 
came  along.  Still,  you  have  taken  a  good  deal.  I 
think  she  never  stopped  being  fond  of  me.  .  .  ." 

"She  is  fond  of  you,  and  she  admires  you  more 
than  anyone." 

"That  ought  to  be  enough,  after  ten  years,  for  a 
wife  whose  husband  is  still  in  love  with  her,  and  who 
has  always  been  faithful  to  her  in  word  and  deed.  But 
it  doesn't  seem  to  be.  I  may  count  on  you,  then  ?" 

"I  will  do  anything  in  my  power  to  make  Diana 
happy." 

"So  will  I.  But  at  the  moment  I'm  not  in  the  run- 
ning. There  is  nothing  that  I  can  do.  I  have  to  go 
back  to  California  to  finish  some  work.  I  shall  have 
to  be  off-stage  for  some  time;  but  I  shall  try  to  be 
tolerant  and  kind.  You  will  have  to  be  the  real  god 


86  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

out  of  the  machine.  I  sha'n't  make  any  rules  about 
your  seeing  each  other.  I  couldn't  if  I  wanted  to. 
You  must  use  your  own  judgment  about  that.  But 
since  you  agree  that  Diana's  best  chance  of  ultimate 
happiness  is  with  Tarn  and  me,  you'll  arrange  to  see 
less  and  less  of  her,  and  even  if  you  don't  cool  toward 
her,  you'll  pretend  to.  Is  that  right?" 

Fenn  drew  and  expelled  a  long  breath. 

"I'm  sorry  for  you,"  said  Manners  quickly.  "I'm 
mighty  sorry.  You  do  love  her,  I  know  that,  and  it's 
going  to  be  very  hard  for  you.  But  your  feelings  sim- 
ply can't  be  considered,  can  they?" 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Fenn. 

"You  see,  I've  done  no  real  wrong.  I've  been  faith- 
ful, I've  furnished  support,  I  haven't  been  cruel. 
Diana  couldn't  get  a  divorce  in  any  State  of  the  Union 
if  I  defended.  In  any  case  she  couldn't  have  Tam.  It 
isn't  as  if  anything  good  could  ever  come  of  your  love 
for  each  other.  Nothing  good  ever  does  come  of 
selfishness  and  injustice.  There  is  no  use  saying  that 
to  Diana  in  her  present  state  of  mind.  But  you  aren't 
temporarily  insane,  and  you  know  it's  true." 

He  smiled  suddenly. 

"If  Diana  finds  out  that  she  is  not  to  have  a  divorce, 
and  that  she  is  not  to  have  Tam,  she  is  quite  capable 
of  running  away  with  you." 

"You  needn't  be  afraid  of  me,"  said  Fenn  simply. 
With  a  sudden  impulse  of  kindness  Manners  held  out 
his  hand. 

"Keeping  up  the  thing  wouldn't  be  fair  to  you 
either,"  he  said.  "Your  storm  will  blow  over,  too, 
Fenn.  You'll  fall  in  love  again,  and  it  will  be  with 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  87 

someone  a  little  more  eligible  than  Diana.  And  I'm 
sure  I  wish  you  luck;  you've  a  rotten  time  just  ahead 
of  you,  and  I'm  obliged  to  you  for  being  so  straight- 
forward and  square." 

Manners  opened  the  door  and  called  to  Diana. 

He  felt  a  great  pity  for  her.  She  must  fight  her 
battle  all  alone.  Even  Fenn  had  lined  up  against  her. 
Fenn  was  a  sensible  fellow,  nothing  villainous  about 
him.  It  was  true  that  he  had  erred  and  strayed  from 
the  straight  path,  but  what  of  that  if  he  was  deter- 
mined to  get  back  to  it  and  keep  to  it? 

He  left  the  lovers  in  the  back  room  and  closed  the 
door  on  them.  He  felt  generous  and  magnanimous. 
He  would  be  immeasurably  kind  to  Diana.  He  could 
afford  to  be.  How  wise  he  had  been  to  see  Fenn  and 
have  that  talk  with  him!  He  and  Fenn  might  even 
become  friends.  Stranger  things  have  happened. 

He  went  into  the  front  room  and  shut  the  door  so 
that  he  could  not  even  hear  the  murmur  of  their  voices. 
And  he  had  no  sooner  done  this  than  he  began  to 
wonder  what  they  were  saying  and  what  they  were 
doing.  Why,  they  were  kissing,  of  course,  and  they 
were  telling  each  other  how  glad  they  were  that  their 
affair  was  no  longer  a  guilty  secret.  From  the  man 
whom  they  had  so  greatly  wronged'  they  had  had  noth- 
ing but  toleration  and  kindness.  He  had  sanctioned 
this  meeting  and  all  future  meetings.  He  had  for- 
bidden nothing;  he  had  made  no  threats.  They  could 
not  but  be  grateful;  that  Fenn  would  not  from  now 
on  play  fair  was  unthinkable. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  half  hour  which  he  had  to 
himself  in  the  front  room,  Manners  thought  less  about 


88  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

his  own  magnanimity  and  more  about  the  injustice 
that  had  been  done  him.  "If  Fenn,"  he  thought,  "is 
\villing  to  break  it  off  now,  why  wasn't  he  willing  to 
break  it  off  as  soon  as  it  started?  Why  didn't  he? 
It  isn't  in  the  least  as  if  Diana  had  been  maltreated. 
She  is  too  honest  to  have  told  him  any  definite  hard- 
luck  story.  At  the  worst  she  can  only  have  looked 
things." 

He  tried  to  keep  his  mind  off  the  idea  of  Diana 
kissing  another  man  and  being  kissed  by  him.  And 
of  course  he  couldn't.  And  for  the  first  time  since 
Diana's  confession,  jealousy,  cold  and  ugly,  stirred  in 
his  breast. 

A  tolerant  and  placid  attitude  toward  their  meet- 
ings was  not  going  to  be  easy.  It  might  be  impossible. 
What  reason  had  he  for  trusting  Fenn  ?  He  had  none. 
To  have  made  love  to  Diana  in  the  first  place  was  a 
blackguardly  trick.  "How  do  I  know,"  thought  Man- 
ners, "that  he  hasn't  repeated  to  her  every  word  I 
said  to  him?  How  do  I  know  they  aren't  laughing 
at  me?  .  .  .  When  he  leaves  I  could  go  to  the 
top  of  the  stair  with  him  and  send  him  down  head- 
first. ..." 

The  steep,  deep,  narrow  stair-well  with  the  marble 
wall  at  the  bottom  came  vividly  into  his  mind. 
Almost  he  could  hear  the  rush  and  the  clatter  of 
Fenn's  descent,  and  the  crash  of  Fenn's  head  against 
the  marble.  At  the  thought  of  killing  Fenn,  Manners 
felt  no  compunction  whatever.  It  would  serve  the 
interfering  fool  right.  And  Diana  would  never  know. 
She  would  always  think  that  her  lover  had  slipped  and 
fallen. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  89 

The  wave  of  jealous  insanity  swept  Manners  from 
head  to  foot  and  passed.  Reason  told  him  that  the 
fall  in  all  probability  would  not  kill  Fenn,  and  that 
thereafter  there  could  never  be  any  hope  of  coming  to 
terms  with  Diana.  The  present  must  be  suffered  so 
that  the  future  might  have  in  it  sweet  and  honest 
things. 

But  somehow  or  other  he  must  put  a  stop  to  the 
kissing.  He  would  simply  tell  Diana  that  even  if  she 
couldn't  feel  as  his  wife  should,  she  had  the  power  to 
behave  as  his  wife  should — while  she  remained  his 
wife  (he  would  throw  in  that  sop  of  comfort) — and 
he  expected  it  of  her. 

Presently  Diana  called  him  into  the  back  room,  and 
very  soon  after  that  Ogden  Fenn  made  his  departure. 

They  discussed  Fenn  for  a  time  as  if  he  had  been 
a  new  acquaintance  in  whom  they  both  took  an  equal 
interest.  But  it  was  not  so  much  what  they  said  of 
him  which  gave  this  impression  as  the  tones  of  their 
voices. 

"I  liked  all  that  I  saw  of  him,"  said  Manners.  "He 
struck  me  as  being  sincere  and  manly.  I  am  glad  you 
didn't  pick  a  bounder." 

"He  has  the  sweetest  disposition,"  said  Diana,  who 
had  a  very  radiant  look.  "He  thinks  of  nothing  but 
my  happiness." 

"I  am  sure  he  thinks  of  your  happiness.  ...  I 
told  him  that  I  had  no  objection  to  your  seeing  each 
other  every  once  in  a  while." 

"He  told  me." 

"And  I  hope,  dear,  that  you  won't  abuse  the  privi- 
lege. I'm  trying  to  smile  and  look  cheerful ;  but  you 


9o  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

know  all  this  is  pretty  rough  on  me.  It's  a  hard  smash 
to  take  standing." 

"I  know,"  said  Diana. 

"Of  course  the  right  thing  for  you  to  do  would  be 
to  give  him  up — never  see  him  again.  But  I  don't  ask 
that" 

"If  you  made  me  give  him  up,  I'd  just  die." 

Manners  put  his  hands  on  his  wife's  shoulders  and 
smiled  very  sweetly  at  her. 

"Honey  bug,"  he  said,  "you  said  exactly  the  same 
thing  about  giving  up  What's-his-name ;  but  here  you 
are  alive  and  well,  and  desperately  in  love  with  some 
one  else.  I  have  every  reason  to  think  that  you  would 
forget  all  about  Fenn  if  you  gave  him  up.  You  haven't 
a  good  record  for  fidelity.  In  eleven  years  you  have 
been  in  love  three  times,  and  each  love  was  to  last 
forever." 

"I  can't  ever  make  you  understand  or  believe,"  cried 
Diana  passionately.  "I  know  that;  but  this  is  differ- 
ent— different." 

For  the  needs  of  the  moment,  anyway,  her  voice 
carried  conviction,  and  dread  like  an  impending  nausea 
filled  her  husband.  Words  that  he  attempted  to  utter 
tripped  and  stumbled  in  his  mouth,  and  he  turned  from 
her  with  a  choking  sound.  But  instantly  Diana  flung 
her  arms  around  him,  and  clung  to  him  tightly. 

"Do  you  think  it's  easy  for  me  to  hurt  you,  Frank  ? 
Do  you?  If  you  and  I  aren't  to  stay  friends,  then  I 
am  done  for." 

"Oh,  Diana,"  he  cried,  "if  it  hurts  you  so  to  hurt 
me,  why  do  you  do  it,  why  do  you  do  it?  Why  didn't 
you  keep  your  eyes  in  the  boat ;  why  did  you  ask  your- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  91 

self  into  this  thing?  Why  didn't  I  ask  Fenn  what  he 
meant  by  making  love  to  my  wife?  m  Because  I  know 
that  he  never  would  have  dared  if  you  hadn't  invited 
him;  no  man  would.  You  looked  sad,  and  unhappy, 
and  misunderstood,  and  he  fell  for  it.  And  now  hav- 
ing done  this  wicked  thing  you  try  to  shield  yourself 
by  saying  how  much  it  hurts  you  to  hurt  me!" 

All  the  while  that  he  was  so  crying  out  in  his  pain 
and  indignation  a  small  inner  voice  kept  whispering 
to  him,  and  saying:  "Idiot,  you  are  only  doing  harm! 
Where  is  that  steady  kindness,  that  steady  tolerance, 
that  wonderful  patience  which  you  promised  yourself 
to  exercise?" 

She  answered  him  swiftly:  "Do  you  suppose  I  don't 
know  what  I'm  giving  up.  Everybody  will  blame  me. 
Everybody  will  be  on  your  side.  Even  my  family  will 
be  against  me.  Do  you  think  I  haven't  counted  the 
cost?  You  have  lots  and  lots  of  compensation,  your 
talent,  and  your  reputation,  the  place  you've  made  for 
yourself  in  the  world,  all  sorts  of  wonderful  things. 
I  had  a  share  in  all  that ;  do  you  think  I  like  to  give  it 
up  ?  .  .  .  Frank,  dear,  this  is  life  or  death  to  me.  I 
must  have  him !  I  must  have  him !  He  is  so  noble,  so 
unselfish.  He  loves  me  so !" 

The  inner  voice  cried  out  to  Manners:  "For  heav- 
en's sake  keep  quiet !  Don't  say  a  word !"  Neverthe- 
less he  said  things,  and  as  each  word  passed  his  lips 
he  regretted  having  spoken  it. 

"Noble  and  unselfish  men  don't  make  love  to  other 
men's  wives.  I  know  you're  badly  mashed  on  Fenn, 
but  the  less  you  talk  about  his  nobleness,  the  less  likely 
you  are  to  get  yourself  laughed  at.  The  whole  busi- 


92  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

ness  is  rotten,  and  you  know  it.  The  only  thing  to  be 
said  in  its  favor  is  that  it  isn't  rottener !" 

Diana's  nerves  gave  way  with  a  crash. 

"If  you  say  one  more  word  against  him,"  she  cried, 
her  face  white  and  contumelious,  "it  will  be  rotten. 
I'll  walk  right  out  of  this  place  and  go  away  with 
him." 

Manners  mastered  himself  with  a  great  effort.  He 
was  trembling  all  over,  and  she  had  frightened  him 
badly. 

"It's  just  nerves,  dear,"  he  said  weakly.  "They 
went  back  on  me.  I  couldn't  control  'em.  It's  all 
right  now.  It  sha'n't  happen  again." 


CHAPTER    IX 

OGDEN  FENN  had  hardly  any  money  at  all;  but  then 
he  had  never  worked  very  hard.  He  believed  implicitly 
in  his  ability  to  support  Diana,  and  in  time  to  give  her 
at  least  such  luxury  as  she  had  been  accustomed  to; 
for  beneath  his  shy  and  quiet  exterior  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  self-reliance  and  considerable  strength.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  he  put  Diana's  happiness  ahead  of  his 
own,  and  that  if  he  had  really  believed  that  it  would 
be  best  for  her  in  the  long  run,  he  would  have  been 
ready  and  willing  to  give  her  up.  He  had  even  prom- 
ised Manners  to  do  so — gradually.  But  he  had  made 
that  promise  with  mental  reservations. 

For  what  seemed  so  beautiful  to  himself  and  Diana 
the  law  has  an  ugly  term.  It  calls  it  "guilty  affection." 
And  doll  the  thing  as  they  would  in  crowns  of  glory 
and  bright  robes  of  present  renunciation,  that  was  all 
it  amounted  to.  But  to  them,  simply  because  they 
had  resisted  technical  sin,  it  seemed  almost  as  if  their 
passion  ought  to  be  applauded  and  admired.  They  had 
not  chosen  to  be  in  love  with  each  other ;  it  was  a  state 
in  which  they  had  suddenly  found  themselves.  There- 
fore they  were  indeed  guiltless  of  any  wrongdoing 
whatsoever.  And  if  others  must  be  hurt,  who  could 
blame  them? 

It  would  have  pained  Fenn  immeasurably  could  he 
have  heard  the  terse  comment  to  which  Diana's  broth- 
ers would  later  treat  the  affair  when  it  came  to  their 

93 


94  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

knowledge.  These  would  say:  "Diana's  makin'  a  fool 
of  herself,  and  of  course  the  man's  a  cur." 

But  Diana,  blind  with  love-sickness,  either  thought 
the  opposite  or  was  not  able  to  think  at  all ;  and  Fenn, 
sensible  though  he  was  and  practical,  did  not  for  a 
moment  realize  the  empire  of  comfort,  habit  and  posi- 
tion which  Diana  stood  to  give  up  for  him.  He  had 
in  exchange  only  his  love  to  offer  her,  and  his  under- 
standing of  her.  At  the  moment  Diana  believed  that 
this  understanding  was  very  perfect.  She  had  once 
thought  the  same  thing  about  Manners's  understand- 
ing of  her,  only  to  find  that  at  their  first  difference  of 
opinion  it  was  very  much  less  perfect  than  she  had 
thought.  She  would  have  differences  of  opinion  with 
Fenn,  and  judging  by  all  the  precedents  which  she  had 
set  in  the  course  of  her  life,  married  or  unmarried,  she 
would  not  be  guided  by  his  judgment,  but  would  fol- 
low her  own  sweet  will;  and  be  sorry  that  she  had, 
very  likely,  and  quite  unwilling  or  it  may  be  really  un- 
able to  express  that  sorrow. 

They  had  already  had  one  difference  of  opinion:  an 
elemental  difference.  Fenn,  believing  that  she  was  best 
off  where  she  was,  had  actually  suggested  that  they 
stop  seeing  each  other ;  but  Diana  had  so  overwhelmed 
that  suggestion  with  tears  and  clingings  that  Fenn  had 
sworn  upon  his  honor  as  a  man  and  lover  that  he  would 
stand  by  her  through  thick  and  thin,  and  that  her  wish 
should  be  his  law  till  death  parted  them.  He  made 
her  indeed  the  same  sort  of  thrilling  and  even  blood- 
curdling promises  which  Diana,  some  ten  years  ago, 
had  made  to  Manners  in  the  presence  of  their  fami- 
lies, their  friends,  and  the  Bishop  of  New  York. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  95 

Fenn  reached  his  modest  rooms  and  threw  himself 
into  the  one  comfortable  chair.  He  was  glad  to  be 
alone.  He  had  hated  the  talk  with  Manners.  But 
Manners  had  acted  like  a  brick.  Would  he  consent  to 
a  divorce?  Diana  was  sure  that  he  would,  but  Man- 
ners had  not  said  so  in  Perm's  hearing.  He  had  on  the 
contrary  implied  that  Fenn  must  gradually  cool  toward 
her  and  let  her  come  to  her  senses.  Cool  toward 
Diana  ?  Never. 

And  in  his  heart  and  soul  he  believed  that  he  never 
would.  His  good  sense  seemed  to  have  abandoned 
him.  When  a  woman  isn't  happy  with  one  man  she 
ought  to  live  with  another.  He  had  lived  most  of 
his  own  life  in  the  West,  in  some  of  whose  States  the 
divorce  laws  amount  to  no  more  than  a  bad  smell.  He 
believed  in  such  laws,  and  in  the  present  circumstances 
relied  upon  them.  He  believed  also  that  his  affair 
with  Diana  was  not  the  usual  thing  at  all ;  but  inspired 
and  God-given.  What  if  Diana  had  come  a  little  more 
than  half  way  to  meet  him?  The  beautiful  thing  must 
have  happened  in  any  case.  It  was  predestined. 

Fenn  had  been  desperately  in  love  three  times.  He 
had  thought  each  of  these  passions  beautiful,  predes- 
tined and  everlasting.  But  now  he  told  himself :  "They 
weren't  at  all  like  this.  This  is  different.  This  is  the 
real  thing." 

And  he  truly  believed  that  it  was  the  real  thing  and 
that  it  would  last  until  he  died.  He  might  force  him- 
self to  give  up  Diana,  for  his  own  good ;  but  the  deed 
would  kill  him.  Turn  and  twist  as  he  would  he  could 
see  nothing  but  her  dear  face,  sad  and  adoring. 

God,  how  gladly  he  would  die  for  her ! 


96  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

All  the  way  out  in  the  train,  Diana  sat  with  her 
hand  linked  in  her  husband's  arm.  He  had  made  his 
peace  with  her.  He  had  taken  back  all  his  harsh,  bitter 
words.  He  had  chewed  them  fine  and  swallowed  them. 
And  he  had  told  her  again  and  again  that  his  only 
thought  was  for  her  happiness.  And  since  Diana's 
idea  of  happiness  was  to  have  both  Fenn  and  Tarn,  she 
felt  toward  her  husband  an  immense  tenderness  and 
gratitude.  She  believed  that  he  would  at  once  begin 
to  make  arrangements  for  being  quietly  and  respecta- 
bly divorced;  and  that  in  the  meantime  he  would  be 
sweetness  itself  about  her  meetings  with  Fenn.  She 
believed  that  if  she  could  only  tell  him  about  Fenn, 
explain  Fenn,  make  him  see  how  wonderful  Fenn  was, 
the  thought  of  how  much  happiness  she  must  inevita- 
bly find  with  such  a  paragon  would  be  real  comfort 
to  him  and  make  his  own  personal  sacrifices  seem 
easy. 

They  elected  to  walk  from  the  station  to  their  house 
and  she  did  indeed  talk  to  him  about  Fenn ;  but  not  at 
great  length.  For  she  made  the  discovery  that  the 
wonderfulness  of  Fenn  was  more  easily  felt  by  in- 
stinct than  explained  in  words.  She  could  not  begin 
by  saying  how  strong  and  handsome  he  was;  for  he 
was  neither.  She  could  not  tell  of  showy  sacrifices 
which  he  had  made,  for  he  had  made  none.  She  could 
not,  in  short,  with  nothing  but  the  letters  of  the  alpha- 
bet to  work  with,  make  a  mountain  out  of  a  molehill. 

Manners  listened  with  gentleness  and  gravity.  Her 
words  went  in  at  one  of  his  ears  and  out  at  the  other. 
He  answered  her  almost  mechanically:  "He  seemed 
to  be  a  genuinely  nice  fellow.  I  really  liked  him.  He 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  97 

talked  very  sensibly.  I  am  sure  he  puts  your  happi- 
ness ahead  of  his  own." 

Diana  agreed  emphatically.  And  by  the  terms  of 
her  agreement  she  showed  with  a  naivete,  uncon- 
sciously humorous,  the  road  by  which  she  imagined 
that  her  happiness  could  best  be  reached. 

"Yes,"  she  said  devotedly,  "he  will  do  anything  I 
want." 

At  her  side  walked  a  husband  who  from  the  day  of 
their  marriage  had  for  some  years  freely  given  her 
her  own  way  in  everything.  It  was  not  until  she  had 
stopped  loving  him  that  he  had  ever  offered  any  seri- 
ous opposition  to  her  inclinations.  "I  ought,"  he  now 
thought,  "to  have  opposed  some  of  them  very  firmly 
while  she  still  loved  me.  If  I  had  done  that  she  might 
love  me  still.  I  ought  never  to  have  given  in  about 
going  to  Newport  that  first  summer.  I  ought  never 
to  have  given  in  about  this  and  that." 

He  could  not  be  sure  whether  his  failure  to  oppose 
Diana  in  decisions  which  in  the  end  hurt  them  both 
had  been  due  to  weakness  or  to  his  love  for  her.  He 
wished  to  put  the  whole  blame  on  love;  for  no  man 
likes  to  confess  even  to  himself  that  his  will  is  really 
weak. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  will  had  strengths  and 
weaknesses.  His  will  to  work  was  extraordinarily 
strong.  But  when  it  came  to  opposing  Diana  his  will 
was  so  weak  that  he  had  to  call  to  its  aid  logic  and 
argument.  Then  into  a  defeat  rapidly  turning  into  a 
rout  he  would  throw  his  last  reserves,  sarcasm  and 
anger,  and  see  them  completely  annihilated.  He  had 
never  been  able  to  give  Diana  a  No  that  meant  No. 


98  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

And  that  undoubtedly  was  the  real  reason  why  their 
married  life  had  for  some  time  been  shaping  itself 
toward  disaster  and  tragedy. 

Manners  was  to  blame.  Diana  had  splendid  quali- 
ties in  her,  and  her  husband  had  failed  to  bring  them 
out.  He  had  spoiled  her. 

Diana  spent  the  next  day  and  night  in  town,  and 
the  day  and  night  following.  Manners  had  stipulated 
that  he  be  told  when  she  was  going  to  see  Fenn  and 
where,  and  she  told  him.  She  was  to  see  Fenn  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  first  day  and  she  was  to  dine  with 
him,  and  afterward  he  was  to  come  to  the  apartment 
"because  there's  so  much  to  talk  over."  The  next 
night  she  was  to  have  him  to  dinner  at  the  apartment 
and  afterward  they  would  go  to  a  show  or  just  sit 
and  talk.  Manners  had  received  this  announcement 
with  an  outward  show  of  tranquillity.  But  he  hadn't 
refrained  from  saying:  "All  right,  dear;  but  that's  not 
my  idea  of  seeing  each  other  once  in  a  while." 

"It's  because  just  at  first,"  she  said,  "there's  so  much 
we  have  to  talk  over." 

She  was  standing  in  a  bright  light  with  her  hands 
raised  to  her  hat. 

In  common  with  most  of  the  young  women  of  her 
generation  Diana  carried  about  with  her  in  what  is 
called  a  vanity  bag  a  stick  of  red  grease  with  which 
she  now  and  then  intensified  the  color  of  her  lips.  In 
common  with  the  other  young  women  she  did  this  not 
for  the  effect,  but  to  keep  her  lips  from  becoming  too 
dry.  And  in  common  \vith  the  other  young  women 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  99 

she  could  never  satisfactorily  explain  why  a  stick  of 
colorless  grease  would  not  have  served  as  well. 

It  was  a  habit  to  which  Manners  had  strongly  ob- 
jected again  and  again.  Diana's  lips  needed  no  em- 
bellishment. They  were  sweet  lips  and  they  were  not 
pale. 

She  finished  putting  on  her  hat,  and  then  she  put 
on  her  veil.  And  Manners  noted  that  the  finishing 
touch  of  the  red  grease-stick  which  usually  intervened 
between  the  two  maneuvers  had  been  omitted.  She 
was  going  to  town,  then,  with  her  lips  as  God  made 
them. 

Manners  could  not  trust  himself  to  speak.  And  he 
turned  away  so  that  she  should  not  see  the  reflection 
of  his  face  in  the  mirror. 

"For  years,"  he  thought,  "I  have  had  to  kiss  grease ; 
but  Fenn  gets  the  real  thing." 

And  he  began  to  tremble  from  head  to  foot  with  a 
diabolic  and  homicidal  anguish.  He  got  through  the 
ensuing  two  days  and  nights  as  best  he  could.  It  is 
a  horrible  thing  to  be  stabbed  in  the  back  by  the  person 
you  love  most,  and  to  be  tortured  without  rhyme  or 
reason.  The  hellish  injustice  of  it  so  rankled  in  him 
that  he  could  not  eat.  Neither  could  he  sleep.  For 
short  stretches  of  time,  and  entirely  for  Tarn's  benefit, 
he  managed  to  force  a  certain  cheerful  gaiety.  And 
that  was  all  the  poor  fellow  could  do. 

And  though  it  went  deeply  against  his  principles  of 
conduct  he  could  not  help  showing  his  depression  to 
Mrs.  Langham.  His  smile  trembled  at  the  corners; 
his  laugh  was  mechanical;  and  the  reasons  which  he 
gave  for  his  loss  of  appetite  were  not  well  invented. 


ioo  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

Mrs.  Langham  herself  might  have  passed  for  a  singu- 
larly unobservant  woman.  She  did  not  appear  to 
think  that  anything  was  wrong  with  anybody.  She 
was  serene,  cheerful  and  ready  to  talk  on  any  subject 
at  any  time.  The  repression  of  any  outward  mani- 
festations of  what  she  really  felt  was  natural  to  her, 
and  she  had  cultivated  her  gift  until  it  was  notorious. 

But  inwardly  she  was  half-dead  with  anxiety,  for 
the  treatment  which  Diana  had  accorded  to  Manners 
since  his  return  from  California  seemed  almost  mali- 
ciously calculated  to  hurt  and  estrange.  Diana's 
flirtation  with  Fenn  had  been  a  source  of  irritation  and 
worry,  and  she  had  at  one  time  considered  telegraphing 
her  son-in-law  to  come  home;  but  that  the  flirtation 
had  in  it  monstrous  possibilities  for  harm  was  only 
just  beginning  to  occur  to  her  and  to  recur.  She,  too, 
had  always  had  faith  in  Diana's  ultimate  good  sense.. 
And  this  faith  was  not  easily  shaken.  Diana  indeed 
was  so  like  her  mother  that  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  believe  that  there  could  be  anywhere  in  her  a  loose 
screw.  She  had  the  same  poise  and  dignity ;  the  same 
proud  and  charming  way  of  carrying  her  head;  the 
same  power  to  make  shy  people  comfortable  and  at 
home.  She,  too,  had  immense  power  to  repress  her 
deeper  emotions  and  to  be  calm  in  the  midst  of  all  but 
the  most  dire  catastrophies. 

Mrs.  Langham  longed  with  a  poignant  longing  to 
know  what  was  passing  in  her  son-in-law's  mind. 
And  it  would  have  lightened  the  load  which  he  was 
carrying  if  he  had  had  any  inkling  of  the  intensity  of 
the  sympathy  which  she  felt  for  him.  He  did  not 
even  know  that  in  the  circumstances  which  had  arisen 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  101 

she  would  sit  in  judgment  on  her  own  daughter,  con- 
demn her,  and  take  his  side.  She  ought,  of  course, 
because  she  was  just;  but  the  relationship  between 
mother  and  daughter  is  not  often  to  be  shattered  by  a 
mere  sense  of  justice. 

Diana  did  not  return  to  the  country  till  the  after- 
noon of  the  third  day.  She  knew  that  she  had  been 
self-indulgent  to  the  point  of  cruelty;  and  the  drawn 
appearance  of  Manners's  face  and  the  unkind  expres- 
sion in  his  eyes  told  her  that  there  would  be  a  storm 
presently,  but  her  own  face  showed  neither  regret  nor 
concern.  She  felt  so  bolstered  by  the  strength  of 
Fenn's  lovingness  and  consideration  that  she  feared 
nothing. 

The  storm  broke  almost  at  once.  Manners  fol- 
lowed her  into  her  room,  and  closed  the  door  after  him. 

"Diana,"  he  said  tensely,  "I  told  you  that  you  could 
see  each  other  once  in  a  while.  That  didn't  mean  six 
times  in  two  days,  and  I  don't  know  how  many  times 
to-day." 

"I  haven't  seen  him  at  all  to-day,"  she  said  coldly, 
and  began  to  take  off  her  hat. 

"It  isn't  altogether  what  you  make  me  suffer,  Diana. 
It's  the  looks  of  the  thing.  You'll  get  yourself  talked 
about." 

"Don't  be  afraid  of  that.  Ogden  is  just  as  thought- 
ful of  my  reputation  as  you  are." 

"People  know  that  I'm  only  on  for  a  few  days,  and 
they  see  you  spending  all  your  time  in  town,  and  they'll 
talk." 

"Let  them!     What  do  they  know?" 


102  THE    WILD    GOOSE  N 

"It  isn't  what  people  know  that  matters;  it's  what 
people  think." 

Now,  though  Diana  habitually  repressed  her  deeper 
emotions,  she  could  display  them  on  occasion.  Some- 
times she  ruled  her  husband  by  charm;  sometimes  by 
wistfulness;  sometimes  by  coldness  and  scorn;  some- 
times by  sobs.  In  her  differences  with  him  it  never 
occurred  to  her  to  fight  fair,  and  to  let  a  decision  rest 
with  logic  and  good  sense. 

"First,"  she  said  in  a  voice  almost  frozen  with  in- 
jury, "you  say  that  you  think  of  nothing  but  my 
happiness,  3nd  then  you  complain  because  I  go  where 
that  happiness  is.  That  is  logical!  Oh!  I  was  so 
happy  and  relieved  when  I  had  told  you  and  you  were 
so  sweet  and  forgiving  and  friendly.  But  I  might 
have  known  that  it  was  only  a  pose  and  that  you 
couldn't  keep  it  up.  I  wish  to  heaven  I  hadn't  told 
you!" 

"I'd  have  found  out,  Diana.  The  thought  of  your 
keeping  the  thing  from  me  indefinitely  is  ridiculous. 
I  did  mean  to  be  steadily  kind  and  forbearing.  Also 
when  I  said  that  you  were  to  see  each  other  once  in  a 
while  I  meant  once  in  a  while.  I  tried  to  be  fair  and 
just.  I  don't  see  why  you  can't  try." 

"Oh!  You're  always  so  fair  and  just!"  she  flung 
these  words  at  him  like  buckshot  from  a  gun.  He  had 
roused  the  tigress  in  her ;  she  was  fighting  for  her  right 
to  do  as  she  pleased,  when  she  pleased  and  where  she 
pleased ;  for  her  right  to  love  and  to  be  loved ;  for  her 
right  to  break  a  solemn  contract  the  moment  her  part 
of  it  became  irksome.  She  was  fighting,  you  may  say, 
for  her  favorite  cubs. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  103 

"Don't  you  ever  want  to  get  over  caring  for  this 
fellow  and  do  right?"  he  cried. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  by  doing  right.  To 
live  with  a  man  I  don't  love,  to  be  his  chattel,  his  cow — 
that's  not  my  idea  of  doing  right.  You  seem  to  think 
that  you  own  me  body  and  soul." 

"I  think  that  when  you  promised  to  be  my  partner 
till  death  you  meant  it." 

"Oh,  that!"  she  exclaimed.  "I  also  promised  to 
love  you  for  the  same  length  of  time.  Is  it  my  fault 
if  I've  stopped?" 

"If  I'd  ever  stopped  loving  you,  Diana,  you'd  never 
have  known  it.  I'd  never  have  done  to  you  what 
you've  done  to  me.  Not  once,  but  twice." 

"You  say  you  wouldn't,  but  you  don't  knozv.  And 
I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  believe  it  anyway." 

"Your  first  blow-up  stopped  hurting  you  three 
months  after  you  stopped  seeing  What's-his-name. 
Stop  seeing  this  man  and  it  will  be  the  same." 

"You  don't  understand,"  she  said  in  a  more 
restrained  voice.  "I'm  older  and  I  know  my  own 
mind." 

"It's  your  heart  you  don't  know,  Diana.  I  can't 
help  going  on  precedent.  Your  love,  even  your  friend- 
ship, is  not  to  be  relied  on.  But  if  you  are  so  sure  this 
time,  why  not  test  the  matter  out?  That's  only  fair 
to  me.  I  love  you,  and  I  want  to  keep  you,  and  I  think 
that  in  the  long  run  your  best  chance  of  happiness  is 
with  Tarn  and  me.  Test  your  love  for  Fenn.  Prom- 
ise not  to  see  him  or  communicate  with  him  for  a  year, 
and  then  if  you  feel  as  you  do  now,  why  I'll  furnii/.i 


104  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

grounds  and  you  can  divorce  me  and  marry  him  in  no 
time  at  all." 

The  idea  of  separating  her  from  Fenn  for  a  year 
obsessed  him.  He  spoke  eloquently  of  its  advantages; 
of  its  fairness  to  all  concerned.  Speaking  for  himself, 
the  year  should  be  free  from  recriminations.  He 
would  make  it  pass  as  quickly  and  pleasantly  as  pos- 
sible. It  should  be  passed  in  the  gayest  and  pleasantest 
places.  If  he  could  not  earn  enough  money  he  would 
borrow  it. 

"This  way,"  he  pleaded,  "Fenn  has  his  chance ;  you 
have  yours,  and  I  have  mine.  If  at  the  end  of  the  year 
you  still  loved  Fenn,  why  I  could  better  bear  my  hurt 
for  the  cleanness  of  the  wound.  I  shouldn't  feel  the 
way  I  do  now:  that  for  no  good  reason  I'd  been 
stabbed  in  the  back,  and  must  take  my  medicine 
whether  I  like  it  or  not.  It's  the  rank  injustice  of 
what  you  propose  to  do  to  me  that  makes  my  position 
impossible.  You  propose  to  rearrange  the  whole  rest 
of  my  life  without  first  finding  out  if  your  love  for 
Fenn  has  the  quality  of  permanency.  If  it  hasn't,  and 
you  don't  find  out  till  you've  divorced  me,  why  God 
help  us  all.  .  .  .  We've  had  lots  and  lots  of  good  times 
together  even  after  you  stopped  loving  me.  If  you 
take  the  big  step  and  find  you've  made  a  mistake,  why 
there's  no  getting  back — even  to  them.  Just  a  year, 
Diana!  Just  a  year  in  which  to  make  sure  whether 
all  that's  left  of  our  lives  really  must  be  rearranged  or 
not?  Somehow  I  don't  picture  Tarn  getting  along 
without  both  of  us.  And  your  mother's  happy  with 
us.  ..." 

"You  could  see  Tarn  whenever  you  liked,"  Diana 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  105 

interrupted;  "you  could  have  her  for  part  of  the 
time." 

"You  won't  even  consider  what  I  propose?" 

"Look  here,"  she  said,  "I  might  promise  not  to  see 
him.  I  couldn't  keep  it.  I'd  just  die.  And  there's 
no  sense  in  it.  Do  you  think  it  gives  me  pleasure  to 
hurt  you?  Do  you  think  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  give 
up  all  the  things  I'll  have  to  give  up?  Why  make  me 
any  more  wretched  than  I  am?  You  say  you  want 
your  chance.  Frank,  you  haven't  got  a  chance. 
Even  if  Ogden  didn't  exist,  I  don't  want  to  go  back. 
We've  been  miserable  together  for  years.  And  you 
know  it." 

"We  haven't!"  exclaimed  Manners.  "And  you 
know  it.  I  ask  for  justice  and  a  fair  chance.  My 
heaven,  that's  not  asking  for  much.  You  don't  even 
think  of  Tarn!" 

"Why  drag  in  Tarn?  You  don't  think  of  her  either. 
You  want  to  keep  me  and  that's  all  you  think  about." 

"I  ought  to  know  better  than  to  try  to  argue  with 
you  when  you  are  sick.  I'm  sorry." 

The  coldness  in  their  voices  was  awful.  It  was 
impossible  to  believe  that  the  woman  was  very  fond 
of  the  man,  and  that  the  man  was  passionately  in  love 
with  the  woman.  Almost  it  seemed  as  if  they  hated 
each  other. 

"Sneering  isn't  the  way  to  get  anything  out  of  me," 
said  Diana. 

"No.  Nor  loving  you,  nor  being  faithful  to  you, 
nor  going  in  debt  for  you.  Nor  can  anything  be  gotten 
out  of  you  by  reason  or  by  logic.  I  wish  to  God  I 
could  stop  loving  you." 


io6  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"If  I'm  such  an  utter  rotter,  why  in  heaven's  name 
do  you  want  to  keep  me  ?" 

"Because  I  do  love  you,"  he  cried,  and  all  the  cold- 
ness in  his  voice  melted  as  before  a  sudden  hot  fire. 
"I  love  you  kind  or  cruel.  I  love  every  inch  of  you. 
Every  good  thing  in  you,  every  bad  thing.  I've  loved 
you  since  you  were  a  little  girl.  When  I  say  that  I'll 
always  love  you  it  means  something.  If  you'd  died 
when  you  were  a  little  girl  I'd  never  have  married. 
I'd  have  mourned  for  you  all  the  rest  of  my  born  days. 
And  I  come  back  after  long  months  to  what  I've  come 
back,  and  I  tell  you  I  can't  stand  it.  I'm  your  husband. 
You  belong  to  me.  And  I'm  not  going  to  be  chucked 
for  a  whim ! — or  a  little  pin-headed  sneak  who's  made 
love  to  you  behind  my  back.  ..." 

With  the  speed  of  lightning,  Diana  sprang  to  the 
bureau  and  snatched  up  her  hat. 

"That's  the  end!"  she  cried  savagely.  "I  can't 
stand  any  more.  I'm  going  away  with  him." 

"If  you  do  I'll  kill  him  like  a  dog." 

"Then  I'll  kill  myself." 

There  was  a  sudden  rapping  on  the  door,  and  in  the 
silence  that  fell  between  them  Tarn's  shrill  voice  could 
be  heard  gaily  demanding  admission.  It  was  as  if 
Manners  and  Diana,  red-hot  with  anger,  had  been  sud- 
denly dipped  in  ice-water.  The  hat  fell  from  Diana's 
shaking  hands. 

"Just  a  minute,  darling !"  she  called.  And  her  voice 
sounded  almost  natural,  even  to  Manners.  He  came 
close  to  her  and  spoke  in  a  whisper.  . 

"Don't  do  what  you  threatened.  Anything  but  that. 
Forgive  a  man  who's  half  mad  with  love  and  disap- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  107 

pointment.  I  can't  feel  about  him  the  way  you  do. 
But  I  certainly  didn't  mean  what  I  said." 

Diana's  face  and  voice  were  relentlessly  cold. 

"If  you  ever  say  one  more  word  against  him — I'll 
walk  right  out  of  the  house  and  I'll  go  straight  'to  his 
rooms.  So  you'd  better  be  careful.  Now  pull  your- 
self together  and  let  Tarn  in." 


CHAPTER   X 

DIANA  had  gone  to  bed.  She  had  talked  very  little 
at  dinner.  After  dinner  she  had  read  at  a  book.  It 
might  have  been  any  book.  It  made  no  impression  on 
her.  She  had  already  forgiven  her.  husband  for  what 
he  had  said  about  Fenn.  It  was  wrong  to  have  seen 
Fenn  six  times  in  two  days.  It  wasn't  playing  the 
game.  She  knew  that.  She  knew  her  own  faults 
and  failings  very  well  indeed.  But  she  hated  to 
admit  them,  and  she  had  neither  thp  will  nor  the 
strength  to  correct  them.  When  she  rose  to  say 
good-night,  her  face  had  an  expression  of  great  sweet- 
ness. She  turned  a  cool  cheek  for  her  husband  to  kiss 
and  gave  his  shoulder  an  affectionate  pat.  Then  she 
went  upstairs.  Mrs.  Langham  and  Manners  heard 
the  sound  of  her  door  closing.  Manners  looked  for  a 
while  at  the  advertisement  sheet  of  the  evening  paper 
which  concealed  his  mother-in-law's  face.  He  made 
up  his  mind  to  speak  to  her  about  Diana  and  Fenn.  He 
wondered  if  he  should  tell  her  now  and  give  her  a  bad 
night.  Or  if  he  should  wait  till  morning.  And  all  of 
a  sudden  it  seemed  to  him  impossible  to  put  off  the 
telling.  The  need  of  counsel  and  sympathy  was  im- 
perative. His  own  mind  had  become  impossible  com- 
pany. 

"Mrs.  Langham,"  he  said  abruptly,  "I've  had  some 
bad  news.     I  think  you'll  hate  it  too.     Diana  is  very 

108 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  109 

much  in  love  with  this  man  Fenn;  she  wants  to 
divorce  me  and  marry  him." 

Mrs.  Langham  put  down  her  newspaper  very  quietly 
and  said:  "She  hasn't  the  shadow  of  an  excuse!" 

It  was  wonderful  how  that  one  phrase  comforted 
him.  It  was  as  if  to  a  man  on  a  desert  rock  a  com- 
panion had  descended  from  heaven.  The  gates  of  talk 
were  open.  He  could  tell  somebody  everything.  He 
could  abuse  Diana  if  he  wanted  to ;  for  without  an  in- 
stant's hesitation  Diana's  own  mother  had  declared 
herself  on  his  side. 

"No.  She  hasn't,"  he  said,  "but  I  can't  tell  her  that, 
or  argue  with  her.  She's  in  such  a  state  that  she  can't 
put  two  and  two  together." 

"I've  been  very  much  worried  all  winter.  At  one 
time  I  thought  of  telegraphing  you.  It  was  a  great 
relief  to  me  when  you  did  come." 

"It's  very  curious.  I  don't  know  why  I  came,  except 
that  I  had  a  sort  of  intuition.  I  got  thinking  that  I 
ought  to  come.  Mrs.  Appleyard  was  furious." 

"If  Fenn  had  been  a  public  fascinator,"  said  Mrs. 
Langham,  "I  should  have  telegraphed;  but  he  seemed 
such  a  mild,  retiring  person !  I  can't  believe  even  now 
that  Diana  is  in  earnest." 

"She  is  just  as  much  in  earnest  now,"  said  Manners, 
"as  she  was  the  other  time.  That  is,  she  thinks  as  she 
thought  then,  that  this  is  a  Faust  and  Marguerite 
affair;  Helo'ise  and  Abelard.  Experience  has  taught 
her  nothing.  Her  sense  of  humor  has  abandoned  her." 

He  smiled  hopefully.  Mrs.  Langham  was  so  calm 
and  her  voice  was  so  matter-of-fact  and  sensible,  that 
the  probable  seemed  the  sure.  Of  course  Diana  would 


no  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

tire  of  Fenn.  It  was  a  million-to-one  shot.  It  was  a 
sure  thing. 

"It  will  be  very  horrid  while  it  lasts,"  he  said. 
"What  do  you  think  I  ought  to  do?" 

"Have  you  done  anything?" 

"I've  had  several  rows  with  Diana,"  he  said,  "but 
rows  only  sink  me  deeper  into  disfavor;  and  I  shall 
try  not  to  have  any  more.  Then  I've  had  a  talk  with 
Fenn."  And  he  told  her  about  that. 

"Do  you  think  you  can  count  on  him  ?"  she  asked. 

"Of  course  Diana  has  made  him  believe  she  has  been 
unhappy  with  me.  He  may  feel  that  he  is  a  knight- 
errant  called  to  the  rescue  of  a  damsel  in  distress.  He 
may  feel  that  he  is  in  honor  bound  to  go  on  with  the 
rescue.  If  he  is  as  weak  with  Diana  as  I  am,  he  will 
have  a  hard  time  breaking  with  her.  If  he  is  really  in 
love  with  her  it  will  be  very  hard  for  him  to  taper  off 
and  pretend  that  he  isn't.  In  her  present  state  of  mind 
Diana  is  preternaturally  sharp  and  suspicious.  But 
wouldn't  you  think  that  after  the  lesson  she's  had !  .  .  . 

"Married  women,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "are  subject 
to  these  attacks.  But  when  there  are  children  and  the 
husband  is  a  decent  sort  they  rarely  lead  to  divorce. 
Of  course,  Diana  seems  utterly  unbalanced  and  irre- 
sponsible at  the  moment ;  but  you  may  be  sure  that  she 
is  doing  a  great  deal  of  thinking.  She  has  good  blood 
in  her." 

"She  talks  of  running  away  with  him;  of  killing 
herself." 

"That  is  to  frighten  you.  No  matter  what  happens 
Diana  will  not  kill  herself.  She's  too  much  afraid  of 
pain.  Women  who  deliberately  stop  having  children 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  in 

while  they  are  still  in  love  with  their  husbands  very 
seldom  commit  suicide.  As  for  running  away!"  she 
laughed.  "Diana  may  run  away;  but  Fenn  won't.  I 
believe  that  I  know  Ogden  Fenn  pretty  well.  Diana 
has  had  him  here  a  good  deal.  I  think  he  has  very  con- 
ventional ideas." 

"If  he  does  run  away  with  her,"  said  Manners,  "I'll 
kill  him." 

"A  woman,"  Mrs.  Langham  explained,  "is  all  sex. 
She  is  sex  to  her  finger-tips.  And  in  her  madnesses 
she  loses  all  sense  of  proportion  and  obligation.  But  a 
man  is  only  part  sex.  He  is  part  sex  and  part  man. 
The  man  part  of  him  is  very  cautious;  you  have  only 
to  imagine  yourself  playing  the  game  that  Fenn  is  play- 
ing if  you  want  to  know  the  exact  state  of  his  mind. 
Probably  Diana  does  not  talk  so  wildly  to  him  as  she 
does  to  you.  But  if  she  does,  then  you  may  be  sure 
that  he  is  one  of  the  most  perplexed  and  frightened 
men  in  New  York." 

Manners  liked  to  think  of  Fenn  as  frightened.  The 
more  his  mother-in-law  talked,  the  more  comforted  he 
felt  and  the  more  confident  for  the  future.  The  taut 
muscles  in  his  face  had  relaxed.  He  looked  younger. 
And  Mrs.  Langham,  perceiving  the  effect  that  she  was 
having  on  him,  kept  on  talking. 

"Diana's  case,"  she  said,  "is  not  without  precedent  in 
her  family." 

"She  has  established  one  pretty  good  precedent  her- 
self," commented  Manners. 

The  color  deepened  in  Mrs.  Langham's  cheeks,  and 
her  eyes  brightened.  There  was  a  twinkle  of  mischief 
in  them. 


112  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"I  was  thinking  of  myself,"  she  said. 

"You !"  he  exclaimed.  There  was  surprise,  amuse- 
ment, almost  horror  in  his  voice.  And  he  repeated  his 
exclamation. 

"It  is  very  flattering  that  you  should  think  it  so  ridic- 
ulous," she  said,  "but  it  happened,  and  it  was  very 
horrid.  I  thought  all  the  things  that  Diana  threatens." 

"Oh,  but  there's  the  great  difference!"  he  cried. 
"You  controlled  yourself.  You  just  set  your  teeth  and 
swallowed  hard."  She  laughed  as  if  some  recollection 
gave  her  genuine  amusement. 

"I  belong  to  a  more  controlled  generation  than 
Diana,"  she  explained,  "but  one  Sunday  I  said  that 
I  was  too  ill  to  go  to  church,  and  as  soon  as  I  had  the 
house  to  myself  I  lay  on  the  floor  and  screamed !" 

"But  I  want  to  know  what  happened.  Did  you  tell 
Mr.  Langham?" 

"He  knew  that  there  was  something  wrong,  but  he 
asked  no  questions.  He  was  very  sweet  to  me  while 
I  was  pulling  myself  together.  That  didn't  take  very 
long.  And  I'm  inclined  to  think  that  I  made  my  hus- 
band a  good  wife." 

"That  is  too  well  known  even  to  be  considered !" 

"Diana,"  she  said,  "was  ten  years  old  at  the  time. 
Think  of  me,  the  mother  of  four  children,  behaving 
like  that.  And  I  was  devoted  to  my  husband.  But  I 
felt  that  at  heart  I  had  been  a  traitor  to  him,  and  my 
conscience  had  no  peace  until  John  was  born.  John 
made  me  feel  honest  again  in  my  own  eyes." 

"John's  a  great  boy,"  said  Manners.  "I  love  him. 
But  what  did  the  man  do  when  you  broke  with 
him?" 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  113 

"But  I  never  broke  with  him.  He  never  knew  that 
I  cared  about  him  in  that  way.  It  would  have  been 
easier  for  me  if  there  could  have  been  a  break ;  love  has 
to  be  fed  like  any  other  hungry  thing.  But  without 
telling  Mr.  Langham  or  the  man  himself  I  couldn't 
arrange  a  break.  He  was  a  lot  younger  than  Mr.  Lang- 
ham  ;  but  they  were  great  friends ;  and  he  was  always 
at  the  house.  I  simply  had  to  suppress  my  emotions 
until  suppression  became  a  habit." 

"But  of  course  the  man  cared  for  you.  He  must 
have  known." 

"If  he  had  cared  of  course  he  must  have  known.  But 
I  think  nothing  was  ever  further  from  his  heart  and 
mind  than  caring  for  me  in  that  way.  He  was  simply 
great  friends  with  us  all." 

"Then,"  said  Manners,  "I  deny  that  you  have  set  a 
precedent  for  Diana.  The  cases  are  utterly  different. 
All  you  did  was  to  set  a  wonderful  and  courageous  pre- 
cedent, which  she  hasn't  had  the  courage  or  the  good 
sense  to  follow.  If  you  and  Diana  were  alike  you 
would  have  made  love  to  the  man  until  he  was  carried 
off  his  feet,  and  then  you  would  have  told  your  hus- 
band, glorying  in  your  crime  and  defying  the  heavens 
to  make  you  just,  or  kind,  or  unselfish.  ...  I  wish 
you'd  tell  this  story  to  Diana." 

"Some  day — perhaps." 

"Sha'n't  you  speak  to  her  about  this  awful  mix-up 
at  all?" 

"Not  unless  she  speaks  to  me ;  or  only  as  a  last  resort. 
No  one  has  any  influence  with  her  now,  except  Fenn 
perhaps.  You  mustn't  think  of  her  as  rational.  These 
outbreaks  are  a  form  of  temporary  insanity." 


U4  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"But  you  haven't  advised  me  what  to  do  ?" 

"I  should  be  very  kind.  I  should  ask  no  questions. 
I  should  have  a  smile  for  her  when  she  comes  and  a 
smile  when  she  goes.  Don't  let  her  see  that  you  are 
suffering.  Let  her  see  Fenn  whenever  she  wants  to. 
Go  away.  Go  back  to  California  and  finish  your  wrork. 
Opposition  is  very  inflaming ;  remove  it  and  most  likely 
the  fire  will  go  out." 

"But  she  expects  me  to  decide  about  giving  her  a 
divorce.  In  the  first  shock  I'm  afraid  I  did  half  prom- 
ise to  let  her  go." 

"It  was  the  best  thing  you  could  have  done.  It  binds 
you  no  more  than  telling  a  fib  to  a  sick  person.  She 
has  no  excuse  for  divorcing  you.  And  you  mustn't  let 
her.  But  I  should  put  off  telling  her  that  just  as  long 
as  possible.  Tell  her  that  until  your  work  in  California 
is  finished  and  you  have  some  money,  you  can't  pos- 
sibly arrange  about  anything.  Perhaps  she  will  have 
tired  of  Fenn  by  the  time  you  come  back.  Don't  hurry 
back." 

Manners  thought  for  a  while  before  answering. 
Then,  his  brows  contracting: 

"I've  simply  got  to  trust  Fenn,"  he  said,  "haven't 
I  ?  That's  the  only  possible  way." 

Mrs.  Langham  nodded. 

"He  seems  a  decent  sort  of  fellow,"  said  Manners, 
doubtfully.  He  filled  his  lungs  with  air,  and  let  it  out 
slowly. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said,  "that  most  of  the  time  I'll  just 
naturally  trust  him.  And  that  there'll  be  other  times 
when  I'll  be  half  mad  with  doubt  and  fear." 

"Frank,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "I'm  as  fond  of  you 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  115 

as  I  am  of  my  own  sons.  I  would  give  anything  to 
spare  you  this." 

"You've  helped  me  so  much,"  he  said;  "so  wonder- 
fully !"  He  rose  and  held  out  his  hand. 

"I'm  going  to  bed,"  he  said,  "and  thank  you  a  thou- 
sand times.  ...  If  Diana  should  bolt  with  this  fel- 
low, you'll  stay  with  Tarn  and  me?" 

"If  you  want  me,"  she  said.    At  the  door  he  turned: 

"I  talk,"  he  said,  "as  if  I  wasn't  to  blame  for  any- 
thing. But  I  am.  I've  been  awfully  hard  on  Diana 
sometimes." 

"She  has  nobody  to  thank  for  that  but  herself." 

"Sometimes  I  think  that,  too.  But  not  always.  I'm 
not  sure.  I'm  kind  to  Tarn.  I'm  kind  to  the  servants. 
I  don't  get  mad  at  you — do  I? — but  I'm  often  unkind 
to  Diana.  Sometimes  I  get  furious  with  her.  If  she'll 
come  back  to  me  I'll  be  different.  I  promise.  You  see, 
I've  expected  too  much  of  her.  And  when  she  hasn't 
come  across,  I've  been  so  disappointed  that  I've  sulked 
and  scolded.  But  if  we  can  get  her  through  this  busi- 
ness, why  I  sha'n't  expect  so  much  of  her.  I  sha'n't 
expect  anything  of  her.  Then  if  she  gives  me  a  little 
something  I'll  be  surprised  and  happy  about  it.  And 
that  way  there'll  never  be  any  excuse  to  be  unkind. 
Good-night  again." 

About  midnight  Mrs.  Langham  knocked  on  her  son- 
in-law's  door,  and  then  pushed  it  discreetly  open.  He 
was  propped  up  in  bed.  A  book  lay  face  down  in  his 
lap. 

"I  saw  the  light,"  Mrs.  Langham  explained.  "Can't 
you  get  to  sleep?"  He  shook  his  head. 

"It's  freezing  cold  in  here,"  she  said.    "I've  brought 


n6  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

you  a  hot- water  bottle  and  a  glass  of  hot  milk.  You 
smoke  too  many  cigarets  after  you  go  to  bed." 

He  protested  against  so  much  attention.  But  he  pro- 
tested as  a  little  child  protests. 

"You  mustn't  mind  me,"  said  Mrs.  Langham  firmly. 
"I  am  an  old  woman." 

She  gave  him  the  glass  of  milk,  and  while  he  was 
drinking  it  she  pulled  out  his  bedclothes  near  the  foot 
of  the  bed,  and  placed  the  hot- water  bottle  against  his 
feet. 

"They  are  like  ice,"  she  said. 

She  tucked  the  bedclothes  back  into  place  with  swift, 
workmanlike  address.  Then  she  took  his  book  and  his 
cigarets  away  from  him,  and  put  out  his  light. 

"Now  try  to  go  to  sleep,"  she  said.     "Good-night." 

When  she  had  closed  the  door  a  curious  thing  hap- 
pened to  Manners.  He  began  to  cry;  quietly  as  men 
cry,  but  with  the  heartbreaking  intensity  of  a  little 
child.  He  cried  because  in  his  bitter  loneliness  some- 
one had  thought  of  him  and  been  kind. 

The  warmth  of  the  hot-water  bottle  stole  deliciously 
into  his  feet.  The  whole  bed  glowed  with  it.  He 
turned  upon  his  side  and  snuggled  himself  into  a  com- 
fortable position.  Then  he  cried  himself  to  sleep. 

Manners  had  imagined  that  his  short  homecoming 
would  be  very  gay,  and  that  his  energies  would  be  ex- 
hausted by  dinner-parties  and  theater-parties.  He  had 
thought  to  see  almost  all  the  people  he  cared  about  at 
least  once.  But  so  far,  owing  to  Diana's  affair,  the 
meetings  which  he  had  had  with  his  friends  had  been 
sheer  accidents.  Mary  Hastings,  however,  had  tele- 
phoned asking  him  to  see  her,  and  a  few  days  later 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  117 

she  had  sent  him  a  note  by  special  delivery  saying  that 
she  really  wanted  to  see  him  and  would  not  be  denied. 

So  he  wanted  to  see  her,  wondering  if  she  had  just 
gone  out  of  her  way  to  be  friendly,  or  if  she,  too,  like 
Mrs.  Langham,  had  been  worried  by  Diana's  flirtation 
with  Fenn,  and  wanted  to  know  the  whole  truth.  If 
she  suspected  things,  he  would  tell  her.  His  confi- 
dences would  go  no  further;  her  sympathy  would  do 
him  good,  and  her  advice  might  be  very  helpful.  Even 
if  her  suspicions  had  not  been  tampered  with,  he  might 
tell  her. 

To  the  average  passer-by,  the  huge  Hastings  house, 
marching  for  half  a  block  with  Central  Park,  suggests 
a  mausoleum.  But  to  Manners,  who  even  liked  Mary 
Hastings's  unpopular  husband,  it  suggested  many  good 
times  and  much  friendliness.  The  house  had  figured 
prominently  during  the  year  of  his  engagement  to 
Diana.  A  dance  had  been  given  there  for  them,  and 
many  dinners  and  luncheons  without  end.  Diana  had 
even  stayed  in  the  house  by  the  week  at  a  time.  It  had 
been  her  town  headquarters.  The  convenient  fortress 
from  which  as  an  engaged  girl,  whose  family  lived  in 
the  country,  she  had  made  tremendous  sallies  upon  her 
trousseau.  And  with  Mary  Hastings  they  had  both 
struck  up  a  wonderful  friendship. 

Downstairs  the  house  was  more  suggestive  of  Hast- 
ings than  of  his  wife.  It  was  dark  and  austere.  It 
contained  a  certain  amount  of  very  expensive  and  very 
ugly  mid-Victorian  furniture  with  which  nothing 
would  induce  him  to  part.  It  had  belonged  to  his 
mother,  with  whom  he  had  always  quarreled,  and  he 
had  perhaps  a  remorseful  sentiment  about  it.  A  full- 


u8  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

length  portrait  of  himself  lent  no  cheer  to  the  entrance- 
hall.  He  was  an  angular  man,  with  a  bony  face  and 
one  shoulder  hitched  a  little  higher  than  the  other ;  his 
expression  was  at  once  mean  and  lordly,  jealous  and 
generous,  shrewd  to  the  point  of  genius  and  childishly 
vacant.  John  Sargent  had  painted  the  portrait  and  had 
told  no  lies.  It  was  as  if  an  alienist  had  said:  "He  is 
sane  at  the  moment;  but  he  will  bear  watching." 

Manners  could  never  pass  that  wonderful  portrait 
without  stopping  to  look  at  it.  It  made  his  owrn  talent 
seem  purposeless  and  blundering.  He  could  never  go 
from  that  portrait  to  confront  his  own  "Apple-Tree" 
that  hung  over  the  fireplace  in  Mary  Hastings's  little 
upstairs  sitting-room  without  a  feeling  of  failure  and 
self-contempt.  And  yet  the  apple-tree  was  a  joyous 
thing.  John  Sargent  himself  had  whistled  when  he 
saw  it,  and  had  asked  if  Manners  was  a  child  of  mortal 
parents  or  if  some  god  and  goddess  had  not  really  been 
responsible  for  him? 

Mary  Hastings's  little  sitting-room  was  her  favorite 
place  in  all  the  world.  There  she  received  her  inti- 
mates, and  there,  often  with  her  frank,  kind  eyes  upon 
the  young  greens  and  the  delicious  pinks  of  Frank 
Manners's  apple-tree,  she  faced  and  thought  out  her 
problems.  There  she  came  to  fight  her  battles  with 
herself,  and  thence  she  emerged  serene,  friendly,  self- 
sacrificed,  victorious. 

People  said  that  she  had  married  Hastings  for  his 
money  and  his  position.  And  so  she  had.  But  the 
whole  truth  was  not  to  be  told  in  one  cold-blooded  sen- 
tence. She  had  married  him  to  save  her  father  from 
bankruptcy  and  to  escape  the  serpents  of  her  mother's 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  119 

tongue.  Hastings  had  bought  her;  but  she  was  too 
honest  not  to  perceive  that  in  allowing  herself  to  be 
bought  she  had  shared  in  his  crime.  She  had  borne 
him  two  children,  a  boy  and  a  girl.  They  were  bony 
children  with  very  high  foreheads.  They  had  shoul- 
ders of  unequal  height.  They  had  in  them  no  trace  of 
their  mother's  beauty,  either  of  body  or  of  spirit. 

So  greatly  had  Mary  Hastings  triumphed  in  her 
fight  with  unhappiness  and  despair  that  even  her  inti- 
mates did  not  really  know  whether  she  was  happy  or 
unhappy.  Poise  and  self-control  had  become  natural 
to  her.  Directness,  sweetness  and  simplicity  had  always 
been  natural. 

Manners's  "Apple-Tree"  and  Mary  Hastings  herself 
made  the  room;  to  the  greens  and  pinks  of  the  tree 
she  offered  the  strong  and  rich  contrast  of  black  velvet. 
Her  tall,  slender,  and  commanding  figure  had  tempted 
her  dressmaker  to  the  utmost  severity  in  cutting  the 
dress.  A  large  table  diamond  on  her  left  hand  and 
a  short  string  of  splendid,  glowing  pearls  were  her  only 
ornaments.  Her  black  hair,  which  grew  low  on  her 
forehead  in  a  widow's  peak,  was  brushed  straight  back. 
But  the  hair  itself  was  not  straight;  neither  was  it 
curly.  It  was  strong,  bright  and  waving.  Manners 
liked  to  compare  her  face  with  that  Greek  face  (which 
of  course  he  had  never  seen)  which  launched  a  thou- 
sand ships  against  Troy.  "But  Trojan  Helen's  face," 
he  usually  added,  "couldn't  have  been  as  sweet  as 
Mary's."  Men  often  forgot  the  sheer  classic  beauty 
of  her  face  in  the  sweetness  of  its  expression. 

She  did  not  rise  when  Manners  entered,  but  held  out 
both  hands  to  him  across  the  steaming  tea-table. 


120  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"I  am  not  at  home  to  anybody  but  you,"  she  said.  "I 
had  to  see  you.  I  must  know  about  Diana." 

"I  am  glad  you  must,  Mary,"  said  Manners,  "be- 
cause I  can't  think  about  anything  else." 

He  remembered  the  difficulties  of  his  nights,  and  re- 
fused tea  or  anything  stronger.  And  then  for  a  long 
time,  with  great  gentleness  and  consideration,  he  talked 
about  Diana ;  what  she  had  done,  what  she  was  doing, 
and  what  she  wanted  to  do.  He  told  his  story  dispas- 
sionately and  without  comment. 

"And  your  intention,  of  course,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings, 
when  he  had  finished,  "is  to  let  her  have  her  way. 
But  you  mustn't." 

"She  is  still  fond  of  me,"  said  Manners  hopelessly, 
"but  if  I  block  the  road  of  honor  and  glory  that  leads 
to  Fenn  she  will  hate  me." 

Mrs.  Hastings  nodded,  but  said:  "She  will  only  hate 
you  as  long  as  she  loves  him ;  but  even  if  her  love  for 
him  is  one  of  the  eternities,  even  if  she  hates  you  and 
makes  your  life  miserable  till  her  dying  day,  you 
mustn't  let  her  divorce  you." 

"Oh,"  he  said  wearily,  "if  I  could  be  sure  that  her 
love  would  last  I'd  let  her  go.  I'd  have  to.  It  would 
be  too  cruel  to  keep  her.  I  love  her  too  much,  Mary. 
I've  loved  her  ever  since  she  was  a  little  girl,  and  no 
matter  what  she  does  to  me  I  keep  right  on  loving  her. 
I'm  a  regular  old  wild  goose,  I  expect." 

He  sat  leaning  forward,  his  elbows  on  his  knees, 
and  his  fine  workman-like  hands  dejectedly  hang- 
ing. 

"Diana,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings  gently,  "is  thinking 
only  of  herself.  Fenn  is  thinking  only  of  himself. 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  121 

Now  I'd  give  a  penny,  Frank,  to  know  whom  you  are 
thinking  of  ?" 

He  looked  up  smiling. 

"Perfectly  right,  Mary.  I  am  thinking  only  of  my- 
self." The  certainty  seemed  rather  wonderful  to  him, 
and  he  reflected  upon  it  for  some  moments.  Then  he 
said: 

"Absolutely  right.  If  I  let  Diana  go,  I  think  only 
about  how  much  I  must  suffer.  If  I  keep  her  and  she 
hates  me  I  think  only  about  how  much  I  must  suffer. 
I  think  that  I'm  thinking  about  Diana ;  but  I'm  not.  I 
haven't  really  thought  about  her  end  of  it,  except  just 
at  first — just  when  she  told  me,  and  for  a  little  while 
after.  I'm  just  an  ordinary,  selfish,  self-centered 
dog." 

"You're  nothing  of  the  kind,  Frank.  You've  had 
a  dreadful  shock,  and  you're  bewildered.  Your  mind 
is  working  in  a  selfish  channel,  but  that's  mere  acci- 
dent and  incidental  to  the  shock.  I've  suspected  for 
some  time  that  things  were  very  wrong  with  Diana  and 
you,  so  in  my  case  shock  has  been  discounted,  and  I'm 
not  worrying  too  much  about  either  of  you.  Don't 
you  see  that  it  doesn't  really  matter  how  much  Diana 
is  hurt?  She  has  had  her  chance  and  she  has  abused 
it.  And  it  doesn't  really  matter  how  much  you  are 
hurt.  You  are  a  man.  As  for  Fenn,  the  more  he  is 
hurt  the  better.  He  will  have  only  himself  to  thank. 
You  three  have  been  of  age  for  a  long  time.  You  have 
been  free  agents.  If  you  have  made  messes  of  your 
lives,  you  have  only  yourselves  to  blame.  Diana  has 
been  too  selfish.  You  have  been  too  indulgent.  And 
— let's  not  consider  Fenn.  Don't  punish  Diana,  don't 


122  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

make  her  suffer,  but  if  she  will  suffer,  why  let  her.  And 
if  you  must  suffer,  why  suffer — and  get  the  most  out 
of  life  that  you  can.  But  for  heaven's  sake,  don't  take 
the  life  of  an  innocent,  helpless  person,  who  has  no  say 
in  the  matter  whatever,  and  rearrange  that  person's 
life  for  the  worse.  Both  you  and  Diana  are  as  neces- 
sary to  Tarn  as  the  food  she  eats.  No  matter  how 
much  Diana  suffers  she  will  always  be  good  to  Tarn, 
and  good  for  Tarn.  It  will  always  be  the  same  with 
you.  Don't  argue  this  with  Diana;  she  wouldn't  sea 
it  now.  But  don't  ever  let  it  out  of  your  mind.  Stick 
to  it.  Even  if  Diana  went  completely  wrong  it  would 
be  better  to  keep  her  for  Tarn's  sake." 

"Every  time  I  try  to  argue  with  her,"  said  Manners 
dismally,  "she  threatens  to  run  away  with  him.  She 
says  that  if  she  is  separated  from  him  she  will  die  or 
kill  herself." 

"Only  the  running  away  with  him,"  said  Mary 
Hastings  comfortably,  "need  be  considered  seriously. 
And  that  mustn't  be  considered  too  seriously.  Men 
will  only  consent  to  that  way  out  when  there  is  no  other 
way  out.  Even  bad  men  don't  like  the  idea  of  running 
away  with  married  women.  They  do  it,  of  course;  it 
does  happen.  But  they  don't  like  it.  It  amounts  to 
being  found  out.  They  would  much  rather  cheat  and 
hope  not  to  be  found  out." 

"Fenn  isn't  a  bad  man,"  said  Manners.  "I've  talked 
with  him  and  I  think  he's  a  pretty  decent  sort.  He 
told  me  I  needn't  be  afraid  of  him.  I  try  very  hard 
not  to  be.  I  know  they  haven't  cheated.  I  don't  think 
they  will.  Has  there  been  much  talk?" 

"More  laughter  than  talk.    Nobody  knows  Fenn,  of 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  123 

course,  and  the  affair  hasn't  been  taken  very  seriously. 
People  are  not  laughing  at  Diana — yet ;  or  at  you,  you 
poor  soul.  They  think  they  are  laughing  with  her. 
Only  a  very  few  people — real  friends — have  been  wor- 
ried ;  your  cousin  Peter,  Mrs.  Langham,  of  course  .  .  ." 

"Have  you  talked  with  her?"  he  interrupted.  Mrs. 
Hastings  nodded. 

"She's  a  wonder!"  he  exclaimed.  "She  never  men- 
tioned it  to  me." 

"She  never  does  mention  things  that  are  mentioned 
to  her.  You've  talked  with  her,  of  course?" 

"And  mighty  glad  I  have.  If  you'll  believe  it,  she's 
on  my  side.  Who  else  knows?" 

"My  husband.     He's  a  very  good  friend  of  yours." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"He  didn't  say  much.  He  did  things.  He  had  Fenn 
looked  up.  He  had  him  looked  up  here  and  all  through 
the  West  in  the  different  places  where  he  has  lived.  But 
the  man's  record  is  negatively  good.  He's  well  thought 
of  by  the  people  who  have  known  him  and  done  busi- 
ness with  him." 

"You'll  thank  Alec  for  me,  won't  you  ?  It  was  very 
white  of  him." 

"It  was  no  trouble.  He  has  a  mania  for  having 
people  looked  up.  One  night  not  long  ago  we  had  a 
small  dinner-dance.  And  when  everybody  had  gone 
he  came  up  to  me  chuckling ;  and  he  told  me  that  dur- 
ing the  evening  I  had  danced  with  seven  men  whom 
he  could  put  in  State's  prison  if  he  wanted  to.  He 
wouldn't  tell  me  their  names.  Look  here,  Frank,  I 
haven't  talked  with  Diana.  Shall  I?" 

"She's  not  to  be  talked  to  now,  Mary.     She  isn't 


124  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

sane.  But  you  have  my  permission,  if  that's  any  use 
to  anyone." 

"Shall  I  talk  to  Fenn  ?  I  don't  know  him.  But  shall 
I  meet  him  and  talk  to  him?" 

"That's  a  brave  and  bold  and  a  new  notion.  What 
would  you  say?" 

"That  I  had  talked  with  you;  that  you  refused  to 
be  divorced  under  any  circumstances;  that  you  re- 
fused to  give  up  Tam.  I'd  try  to  show  him  that  noth- 
ing honorable  could  ever  come  of  the  affair.  I'd  try 
to  persuade  him  to  duck  out  gradually,  and  not  alto- 
gether gracefully." 

"If  we  could  be  sure  that  he  wouldn't  run  to  Diana 
and  repeat  what  you  had  said?" 

"I  should  make  reasonably  sure  about  that  before 
I  gave  anything  away." 

"If  Diana  finds  out  that  I  won't  give  her  a  divorce 
at  any  price  .  .  ."  He  did  not  finish  the  sentence. 

"She  mustn't." 

"Well,"  said  Manners,  "I  wish  you  would  see  him. 
I've  such  tremendous  faith  in  you.  And  talking  with 
you  has  done  me  a  world  of  good." 

"I  think,"  she  said,  "that  Diana's  fire  is  too  intense 
to  last.  It  will  burn  itself  out.  Don't  take  her  too 
seriously.  And  don't  take  this  wretched  business  too 
much  to  heart.  Keep  your  mind  on  Tam.  Think  of 
her  future.  And  don't  be  diverted  from  that  by 
quixotic  impulses." 

"Of  course,"  he  said  simply,  and  as  if  she  had  not 
'been  listening,  "if  they  run  away  together  I  shall  kill 
him." 

"By  all  means,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Hastings,  and  she 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  125 

smiled  into  his  face  with  such  persistent  sweetness  that 
he  had  to  smile  back.  "By  all  means  kill  him,"  she 
repeated,  "and  as  he  falls  dead,  and  as  Diana  throws 
herself  under  the  nearest  trolley-car,  and  as  the  officer 
of  the  law  lays  his  hands  on  your  shoulder,  and  leads 
you  away  from  your  paints  and  your  canvases  and  all 
your  possible  sources  of  revenue — think  of  Tam !" 

He  couldn't  help  laughing.  Then  he  said :  "Always 
right,  Mary.  I  mustn't  kill  him,  of  course.  But  life 
hasn't  been  very  gay  with  me  lately,  and  you  have  no 
idea  what  fun  it  would  be !" 

She  sighed  when  he  had  gone,  and  looked  deep  into 
the  wonderful  apple-tree  that  he  had  painted  for  her, 
and  sat  for  a  long  time  thinking. 

"Frank  and  Diana,"  she  thought,  "have  had  five 
years  of  perfect  happiness.  No  two  people  were  ever 
so  much  in  love  with  each  other.  Now  they  are  both 
unhappier  than  I  am,  and  I  haven't  even  one  minute's 
happiness  to  look  back  on." 

Even  this  tragic  thought  did  not  disturb  her  look 
of  brooding  serenity,  nor  the  sweetness  of  the  smile 
which  she  had  given  Manners  at  parting  and  which 
still  lingered  about  her  mouth. 

"Oh,  my  dear  Apple-tree,"  she  thought,  "if  only  I 
had  had  Diana's  chance!" 


CHAPTER    XI 

SHE  did  not  know  whether  she  should  bring  the 
matter  up  with  Diana.  But  she  was  determined  to 
mett  Fenn,  and  if  he  seemed  an  honorable  man,  who 
would  not  repeat  what  was  said  to  Diana,  to  talk  with 
him  and  try  to  influence  him.  It  was  not  usually  very 
difficult  for  her  to  influence  men.  And  she  knew  it. 

It  wrould  not  be  easy  to  meet  Fenn,  because  they 
did  not  belong  to  the  same  station  in  life,  but  luck 
favored  her.  The  night  after  Manners's  departure  for 
California  she  saw  them  at  the  play,  and  managed, 
when  the  performance  was  over,  to  so  time  her  exit 
from  the  theater  that  it  coincided  with  theirs. 

Diana  would  have  avoided  the  encounter  if  possible. 
She  no  longer  felt  comfortable  when  she  was  with 
Mary  Hastings,  and  since  the  beginning  of  the  affair 
with  Fenn  had  deliberately  kept  away  from  her.  Bet- 
ter than  anyone  else  Diana  knew  the  gallant  fight  that 
Mary  Hastings  had  kept  up  to  make  a  success  out  of  a 
ghastly  marriage.  She  admired  no  other  woman  so 
much.  And  there  was  no  other  person  in  the  world 
whom  she  so  hated  to  disappoint.  But  their  greeting, 
unaffected  and  affectionate,  left  nothing  to  be  desired. 
They  met  as  intimate  friends  meet  who  have  been  see- 
ing each  other  often. 

Fenn  was  introduced.  He  was  a  little  flustered.  He 
had  looked  at  her  more  than  once  during  the  progress 

126 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  127 

of  the  play  and  Diana  had  told  him  who  she  was. 
Fenn  had  as  little  of  the  snob  in  him  as  the  next  man, 
but  the  extraordinary  beauty  of  the  woman,  and  the 
hundred  or  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  which  was 
said  to  be  behind  that  beauty,  had  their  effect.  If  only 
for  Diana's  sake  he  wished  himself  tall  and  of  com- 
manding presence.  He  wished  that  he  had  the  gift 
of  saying  witty  things  in  rather  a  loud  and  showy  way. 
If  only  for  Diana's  sake  he  wished  to  make  good  with 
Diana's  powerful  friends.  If  only  he  could  get  them 
to  like  him  for  himself  it  would  be  so  much  better  for 
Diana  in  the  long  run. 

He  knew  that  the  heads  of  half  the  people  in  the 
lobby  were  turned  toward  Mrs.  Hastings ;  that  she  was 
being  pointed  out  and  excitedly  commented  on.  And 
he  knew  that  because  he  was  talking  with  such  a 
famous  person  he  was  having  a  share  in  her  conspicu- 
ousness.  This  knowledge  inflamed  his  cheeks  and 
tripped  his  tongue.  He  felt  like  an  awkward  fool. 
Diana  herself  could  not  have  put  him  at  his  ease.  And 
she  had  abandoned  him.  She  was  talking  with  Hast- 
ings. And  Hastings  was  laughing  his  loud,  harsh 
laugh.  Only  Mrs.  Hastings  herself  could  have  put 
Fenn  at  his  ease.  And  it  was  not  so  much  she  herself 
who  managed  it  as  the  sheer  loveliness  that  radiated 
from  her  eyes;  and  the  sweetness  and  the  serenity  of 
her  voice. 

He  forgot  that  rude,  whispering  people  were  staring 
at  him ;  he  forgot  that  he  was  humble  and  shy  and  self- 
conscious  and  unsuccessful.  Almost  he  might  have 
been  alone  in  a  forest  contemplating  some  miraculous 
flower. 


128  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

He  heard  Diana's  voice:  "Mr.  Hastings  wants  us 
to  go  somewhere  to  supper  with  them,"  she  said. 

"I'd  love  to,"  said  he. 

And  then  almost  without  remembering  how  he  got 
there  he  found  himself  surrounded  by  a  most  luxuri- 
ous and  delicate  smell  of  leather.  He  was  sitting  next 
to  the  famous  Alexander  Hastings — one  of  the  most 
envied  and  discussed  men  in  America.  They  were 
riding  backward.  Opposite  him  was  the  woma-n  who 
was  all  the  world  to  him,  next  to  her  was  the  most 
beautiful  woman  in  all  the  world.  If  only  he  could 
think  of  something  to  say! 

"There's  room  on  this  seat,  Mr.  Fenn,"  said  Mrs. 
Hastings,  "if  you  hate  riding  backward." 

His  opportunity  had  come.  He  knew  his  Mark 
Twain  inside  out,  and  with  a  hint  of  a  stammer  in  his 
speech  he  used  that  knowledge. 

"I  only  hate  it  on  the  water,"  he  said,  "when  it's  my 
turn  to  row." 

Hastings  vented  an  appreciative  roar  of  harsh 
laughter.  The  lovely  women  laughed,  and  Fenn,  car- 
ried away  with  pleasure  at  having  made  a  hit,  laughed 
too.  Diana's  eyes  fairly  blazed  with  pride.  How 
could  anybody  help  liking  a  rnan  who  could  say  won- 
derful things  like  that? 

It  was  less  pleasant  for  her  when  Fenn,  feeling  that 
he  had  stolen  another  man's  thunder,  insisted  on  dis- 
avowing any  credit  for  what  he  had  said,  and  at  some 
length  and  not  very  brilliantly  retailed  the  witticism  in 
its  original  form.  The  laughter  which  greeted  this 
explanation  and  repetition  was  neither  unrestrained 
nor  spontaneous.  And  for  the  lack  of  humor  thus  dis- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  129 

played  by  her  lover's  insistence  Diana  was  obliged  to 
seek  consolation  in  the  beautiful  intellectual  honesty 
which  had  compelled  it.  No  one  was  so  modest.  No 
one  was  so  adamantine  on  questions  of  undeserved 
credit ! 

As  for  Mary  Hastings,  smiling  very  sweetly  upon 
the  unfortunate  bungler,  she  thought  to  herself:  "I 
wonder  if  he  isn't  ever  a  little  mite  tedious?" 

And  she  was  sorry  for  him.  For  when  he  looked 
at  Diana  his  eyes  had  in  them  the  adoration  of  a  dog's, 
and  she  knew  that  neither  to  themselves  nor  to  any- 
body else  could  any  real  good  come  of  their  love  for 
each  other. 

"Did  Fenn  know  that?"  she  wondered.  "Did  he 
even  suspect  it?" 

During  supper  she  made  the  discovery  that  Fenn 
was  a  great  admirer  of  Chinese  porcelains.  The  finer 
examples  were  of  course  beyond  his  means,  but,  other 
things  being  equal,  he  went  where  porcelains  were. 
He  had  books  on  the  subject.  He  was  a  genuine  ama- 
teur. Nothing  could  have  been  more  fortunate.  The 
Hastings  collection  was  so  important  that  it  had  a 
whole  room  to  itself.  Fenn  must  have  an  afternoon 
with  the  collection,  and  the  sooner  the  better.  It  would 
be  easy  to  leave  Diana  out;  she  would  indeed  prefer 
to  be  left  out,  for  collections  of  all  kinds  bored  her. 

The  salaried  expert  who  dusted  the  porcelains  when 
he  wasn't  worshiping  them  should  show  them  to  Fenn. 
And  then  Fenn  should  have  a  cup  of  tea  in  her  little 
sitting-room,  and  be  talked  to.  The  engagement  was 
made.  Fenn  was  flattered  and  delighted.  Diana  was 
also  delighted.  She  suspected  Mary  Hastings  of  no 


130  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

hidden  motive.  And  when  the  afternoon  for  seeing 
the  porcelains  came  she  abandoned  her  lover  to  the 
more  beautiful  woman  without  a  twinge  of  doubt. 

When  Mrs.  Hastings  joined  Fenn  in  the  room  de- 
voted to  the  porcelains,  his  interest  in  them  waned,  and 
he  was  glad  to  be  led  away  to  tea.  It  seemed  wonder- 
ful to  him  to  have  been  singled  out  for  so  much  atten- 
tion by  so  beautiful  and  famous  a  woman.  He  imag- 
ined that  not  everybody  was  privileged  to  see  her  alone 
in  that  charming  little  sitting-room.  Diana  must  have 
such  a  room  some  day.  The  shyness  natural  to  him 
was  not  in  evidence.  His  face  and  eyes  glowed  with 
genuine  pleasure.  But  only  for  a  few  moments;  for 
Mrs.  Hastings  made  a  direct  characteristic  attack  on 
the  subject  which  was  uppermost  in  her  mind. 

"Mr.  Fenn,"  she  said,  "if  you  have  no  secrets  from 
Diana  I  am  going  to  give  you  a  cup  of  tea  and  let  you 
go.  Otherwise  I  should  like  very  much  to  have  a  frank 
talk  with  you." 

"If  you  ask  me  not  to  say  anything,"  said  Fenn 
promptly,  "of  course  I  won't."  His  sense  of  ease  and 
well-being  had  deserted  him,  and  he  felt  a  certain 
alarm. 

"I've  noticed  for  a  long  time,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings, 
"that  Diana  wasn't  happy ;  so  when  her  husband  came 
on  from  California  I  inveigled  him  here — just  as  I 
have  inveigled  you,  Mr.  Fenn,  and  because  we  are  very 
old  friends,  and  because  he  trusts  me,  he  told  me  the 
whole  story.  So  far  he  does  not  attribute  this  calami- 
tous situation  to  you.  He  has  known  Diana  all  his  life, 
and  if  he  puts  the  blame  on  her,  most  of  their  friends 
will  believe  that  he  is  right." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  131 

"Does  it  matter  how  it  happened,  Mrs.  Hastings?" 

"No.  But  if  it  is  allowed  to  go  on,  the  blame  of 
course  will  be  shifted  to  you." 

"Manners  and  I  had  a  talk.  Did  he  tell  you?  I 
must  say  it  seemed  to  me  that  he  didn't  care  a  great 
deal  what  happened.  He  was  extremely  courteous,  and 
— well,  not  a  bit  like  what  I  had  pictured." 

"You  having  gathered  from  Diana,"  smiled  Mrs. 
Hastings,  "that  his  temper  is  violent,  and  his  speech 
bitter  and  sarcastic.  Probably  you  picture  Diana  as 
a  wronged,  ill-treated,  misunderstood  and  desperately 
unhappy  woman  with  her  husband  as  the  cause  of  it  all. 
She  has  probably  not  told  you  so  in  words.  She  is  too 
honest  to  tell  absolute  lies.  But  she  has  let  you  think 
so,  and  hence  all  the  trouble." 

"I  don't  know  that  I  can  agree  to  that." 

"As  a  chivalrous  man  of  course  you  can't.  The 
point  is  that  Diana  hasn't  the  slightest  excuse  for  doing 
what  she  is  doing.  No  woman  ever  had  a  better  hus- 
band. No  girl  ever  had  a  better  chance  to  be  happy." 

"Mrs.  Hastings,"  said  Fenn,  with  feeling,  "I  im- 
agine that  I  must  know  Diana  pretty  well.  For  years 
her  life  has  been  miserable.  Manners  finds  fault  with 
her  continuously ;  he  is  terribly  sarcastic  and  bitter.  I 
don't  say  that  he  is  downright  cruel,  but  with  her  ten- 
der and  delicate  sensibilities " 

"I  daresay  he  is  all  those  things,"  Mrs.  Hastings  in- 
terrupted. "And  why?  Because  Diana  will  go  her 
own  selfish  way,  no  matter  who  is  hurt.  Very  natu- 
rally he  objects,  and  there  are  scenes.  That  isn't  cru- 
elty. That  is  the  direct  result  of  a  wife  behaving  as  no 
wife  should.  There  is  no  use  denying  this  and  trying 


132  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

to  stick  up  for  Diana.  You  yourself  can  at  least  testify 
on  one  flagrant  example  of  her  unwifeliness.  Yet  if 
he  speaks  one  word  against  her  affair  with  you  she  sobs 
and  cries,  and  runs  to  you  to  tell  you  how  her  husband 
maltreats  her.  My  dear  Mr.  Fenn,  you  proved  to  us 
the  other  night  that  you  have  a  sense  of  humor ;  fall 
back  on  it.  It  is  a  sword  and  buckler.  Most  of  us 
think  that  Frank  Manners  is  about  the  best  husband  we 
know,  and  that  he  has  had  a  terrible  lot  of  extrava- 
gance, both  financial  and  moral,  to  put  up  with.  No 
one  who  knows  them,  for  instance,  will  take  sides 
with  her,  and  defend  her,  if  this  flirtation  with  you 
ever  becomes  common  knowledge.  Their  intimates, 
including  Diana's  mother,  will  feel  nothing  but  pity 
and  sympathy  for  him,  and  nothing  but  contempt  for 
her." 

"Why  does  he  want  to  keep  her,"  Fenn  asked,  not 
without  point,  "if  she  is  such  an  unsatisfactory  wife?" 

"For  one  reason,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings,  "he  has  loved 
her  ever  since  she  was  a  little  girl.  He  still  loves  her. 
I  shouldn't  wonder  if  his  love  for  her  was  a  finer 
thing  even  than  yours,  Mr.  Fenn." 

"To  me,"  said  Fenn,  "there  is  a  certain  grossness  in 
clinging  to  a  woman  who  no  longer  loves  one." 

"There  are  other  reasons,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings,  but 
her  voice  momentarily  had  lost  something  of  its  habit- 
ual sweetness.  "Diana  with  all  her  faults  is  a  good 
mother.  It  would  be  criminal  to  separate  Tarn  from 
her." 

"I  imagine,"  said  Fenn,  "that  the  courts  would  give 
the  custody  of  the  child  to  the  mother.  That  is  very 
usual." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  133 

"It  would  be  equally  criminal  to  separate  Tarn  from 
her  father." 

"There  could  be  an  arrangement  by  which  each  could 
have  her  part  of  the  time — say  fifty-fifty." 

In  justice  such  an  arrangement  really  seemed  emi- 
nently fair  and  proper  to  Fenn.  He  was  not  pretend- 
ing anything  to  serve  his  needs.  Having  no  children, 
he  knew  nothing  about  them. 

"Between  Tarn  and  her  father,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings, 
"there  is  a  peculiarly  beautiful  relationship.  It 
wouldn't'  do  to  separate  them.  But  we  needn't  go  into 
that.  Diana  has  an  idea  that  her  husband  will  give 
her  a  divorce.  He  actually  made  some  such  proposi- 
tion. It  was  conditional  on  her  not  seeing  you  or  com- 
municating with  you  for  a  year.  He  wished  to  test  the 
strength  and  lasting  qualities  of  her  affection  for  you. 
But  this  proposition — fair  and  just  to  all  concerned 
and  calling  upon  Diana  merely  for  a  little  self-denial — 
was  rejected  with  stormy  sobs  and  threats  of  suicide. 
Mr.  Fenn,  I  speak  for  the  husband  when  I  tell  you  that 
all  tentative  propositions  of  divorce  have  been  with- 
drawn. Just  before  he  started  back  for  California, 
Manners  consulted  his  lawyers  and  telephoned  me  the 
result.  There  are  no  legal  difficulties.  Diana  cannot 
divorce  Manners  to  save  her  soul  if  he  opposes  the  suit. 
He  has  been  faithful  to  her,  he  has  supported  her, 
he  has  been  far  more  tolerant  and  far  more  kind  to 
her  than  her  deserts  have  always  warranted.  On  the 
advice  of  Diana's  own  mother  he  has  decided  that  he 
will  not  give  Diana  a  divorce — thathe  will  not  divorce 
her  under  any  circumstances.  In  the  face  of  that,  Mr. 


iurr  AiiYIMAPV 


134  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

Fenn,  I  should  like  to  know  just  what  it  is  that  you 
have  to  offer  her  ?" 

"But  I  understood  that  he  would  do  anything  for 
her  happiness,  that  he  would  let  her  divorce  him?" 

"He  will  consider  Tarn's  welfare  and  happiness  first. 
So  what  can  you  offer  Diana?" 

"There  is  such  a  thing,"  said  Fenn  slowly,  "as  people 
when  they  love  each  other  and  are  driven  to  despera- 
tion .  .  ." 

"You  are  thinking  of  Diana's  happiness?  You  can 
only  offer  her  scandal  and  dishonor.  And  of  course 
Manners  would  shoot  you.  If  he  failed,  she  has  two 
brothers,  who  also  believe  in  old-fashioned  things  like 
virtue  and  honor.  That  will  make  Diana  happy." 

She  said  this  so  gently  and  good-humoredly  that 
Fenn  was  not  very  much  impressed.  He  smiled. 

"I  don't  take  much  stock  in  shooting  talk,"  he  said. 
"Somehow  people  don't  shoot  in — in  our  station  in 
life." 

"Our  station !"  she  exclaimed.  "My  dear  Mr.  Fenn ! 
We  have  no  station  assigned  to  us.  If  our  actions  are 
low,  our  stations  are  low.  If  our  actions  are  high- 
minded,  just,  temperate,  and  unselfish,  we  occupy  high 
stations.  But  nobody  will  believe  that  you  love  Diana 
or  care  about  her  happiness  if  you  do  anything  dishon- 
orable. I  wish  I  could  see  into  your  mind.  I  wish  I 
knew  just  how  much  you  really  want  to  go  on  with 
this,  and  just  how  much  you  feel  that  you  must,  how 
much  you  feel  that  you  are  bound  in  honor  to  go  on 
until  Diana  herself  says  stop." 

"I  am  bound  in  all  honor  to  go  on  until  Diana  her- 
self says  stop."  In  saying  this  Fenn  actually  glowed 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  135 

with  a  sense  of  virtue  and  chivalry.  He  really  felt  that 
to  stick  to  the  woman  who  loved  him,  trusted  him,  and 
needed  him  was  the  highest  duty  in  his  life. 

"You  don't  know  how  her  character  has  changed  in 
these  last  months,"  he  said  earnestly. 

The  corner  of  Mrs.  Hastings's  mouth  puckered,  as 
also  certain  fine  lines  that  met  at  the  outer  corners  of 
her  eyes.  Her  eyes  sparkled. 

"I'm  sure  her  character  Itas  changed,"  she  said,  and 
Fenn  knew  that  she  was  laughing  at  him.  "Formerly," 
she  exclaimed,  "Diana  was  a  model  wife,  and  a  model 
mother  and  a  faithful  friend.  She  thought  only  of  the 
happiness  of  those  around  her.  When  you  say  that 
her  character  has  changed  you  are  perfectly  right.  And 
that  change  is  of  course  owing  to  your  splendid  influ- 
ence, Mr.  Ogden  Fenn.  Since  knowing  you  Diana 
has  stabbed  her  faithful  husband  in  the'  back,  she  has 
been  false  to  solemn  vows.  Self-indulgence  and  in- 
justice to  others  now  distinguish  her  from  her  former 
self." 

All  the  quizzicalness  and  smilingness  went  out  of 
her  face. 

"I  meant  that  theoretically  a  wife's  place  is  with  her 
husband  and  her  children.  But  I  reserved  the  right  to 
believe  that  there  are  exceptions  to  the  rule.  And  I 
believe  that  Diana — she  is  so  high-strung,  Mrs.  Hast- 
ings, so  fragile,  so  sensitive — is  one  of  those  exceptions. 
The  soil  in  which  she  grows  must  be  congenial  to  her. 
She  cannot  live  and  bloom  with  a  man  she  does  not 
love." 

"Have  you  thought  how. swiftly  and  desperately  she 
will  fade  when  the  realization  of  all  that  she  has  lost 


136  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

comes  home  to  her,  and  at  the  same  time  she  has  fallen 
out  of  love  with  you?" 

"I  am  as  sure  of  her  love  for  me  as  I  am  sure  of  my 
love  for  her.  I  can't  make  you  understand,  of  course, 
but  somehow  it  isn't  the  usual  thing;  it's  different." 

Mrs.  Hastings  laughed,  but  there  was  no  mirth  in 
her  heart. 

"I  have  run  my  silly  head  into  a  stone  wall,"  she 
said.  "I  hoped  to  make  you  see  things  as  I  see  them. 
I  hoped,  since  nothing  but  dishonor  can  come  by  pro- 
longing the  affair,  that  you  would  see  the  beauty  of 
putting  an  end  to  it." 

She  rose  with  a  certain  droop  in  her  shoulders  that 
suggested  weariness,  and  although  she  did  not  hold 
out  her  hand,  Fenn  felt  that  he  was  being  dismissed. 
He  felt  that  in  their  conversation  he  had  not  come  off 
second  best.  He  had  stuck  tight  to  Diana;  he  always 
would.  Just  as  she  would  always  stick  tight  to  him. 

"Diana;"  said  Mrs.  Hastings,  "is  to  blame  for  start- 
ing this.  You  are  to  blame  for  keeping  it  up.  People 
are  beginning  to  talk — to  couple  your  names.  Her  rep- 
utation is  hurt.  You  may  succeed  in  ruining  it.  Ac- 
cording to  law,  Manners  has  ample  grounds  upon 
which  to  divorce  Diana.  She  has  no  ground  on  which 
to  divorce  him.  Her  conduct  is  outrageous,  without 
pity  or  justice.  It  may  be  that  her  husband's  love  for 
her  will  change  into  contempt.  In  that  event,  he  will 
think  only  of  justice,  and  I  shouldn't  care  to  be  in  your 
shoes,  Mr.  Fenn." 

"I  am  not  easily  frightened,  Mrs.  Hastings." 

And  he  was  not  in  the  least  frightened ;  that  Man- 
ners, who  had  been  so  gentle  and  courteous,  should 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  137 

ever  be  possessed  by  a  homicidal  mania  was  inconceiv- 
able to  him;  as  inconceivable  as  that  he  himself,  on 
crossing  the  avenue,  after  leaving  Mrs.  Hastings, 
should  be  run  over  and  killed.  And  to  the  statement 
that  he  was  not  easily  frightened  he  added :  "I  am  only 
afraid  of  my  own  failings  and  shortcomings.  Of 
nothing  else,  certainly  not  of  the  sort  of  jealous  hus- 
band who  occurs  only  in  romantic  novels  and  on  the 
lower  East  Side." 

When  Fenn  had  gone,  after  reassuring  her  that  he 
would  not  mention  the  subject  of  their  conversation 
to  Diana,  Mary  Hastings  sat  down  at  her  writing- 
table  and  began  a  letter  to  Manners. 


CHAPTER    XII 

FROM  talking  with  his  mother-in-law,  and  with  Mary 
Hastings,  Manners  had  derived  a  certain  comfort.  And 
.his  belief  that  Diana,  while  she  still  imagined  that  a 
divorce  could  be  arranged,  would  not  cast  away  the 
last  shreds  of  honor,  was  firm.  Still  he  had  believed 
that  going  back  to  California  at  such  a  crisis  in  his  life 
would  be  the  very  last  turn  of  the  screw.  But  in  this 
he  was  mistaken.  Every  mile  that  further  separated 
him  from  New  York  and  Old  Westbury  seemed  to  add 
something  to  his  power  of  mental  detachment.  And 
for  the  first  time  the  thought  that  life  without  Diana 
might  be  possible  presented  itself.  He  encouraged  this 
thought,  and  played  with  it  by  the  hour. 

But  in  the  various  lives  which  he  pictured  himself 
as  leading  after  Diana  should  leave  him,  one  premise 
remained  constant.  The  separation  must  be  absolute. 
There'  must  be  no  meetings  deliberate  or  accidental  to 
disquiet  him  and  make  his  heart  beat.  All  communi- 
cations between  them  must  be  through  their  lawyers. 
Nor  would  he  consent  to  paying  her  a  penny  of  ali- 
mony. She  liked  everything  about  Fenn,  therefore  she 
liked  Fenn's  poverty.  Let  her  have  her  selfish  way, 
and  make  the  best  of  it. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  Diana's  extravagance  Manners 
would  have  been  well-off.  If  Diana,  for  instance,  had 
been  content  to  live  for  a  few  years  in  the  little  house 

138 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  139 

which  he  had  built  for  her,  if  she  had  been  willing  to 
have  more  than  one  child,  and  for  the  sake  of  those 
children  to  sacrifice  her  own  restless  desires!  Refus- 
ing to  bear  children  had  been  her  great  failure.  There 
could  be  no  doubt  of  that.  Here  his  plans  for  the 
future  slipped  off  into  recollections  of  the  past. 

At  one  period  during  the  thirty  years  of  her  life 
Diana  had  almost  touched  perfection.  To  think  of  the 
happy,  peaceful  months  preceding  Tarn's  birth  was  to 
think  of  Madonnas  and  Annunciations.  Diana  had 
been  serene,  blissful  and  exalted.  She  had  neared  per- 
fection. And  in  the  months  following  Tarn's  birth  it 
seemed  to  Manners  that  Diana  had  actually  reached 
perfection.  She  had  watched  over  the  child  as  a  lover 
watches  over  his  beloved.  She  had  dropped  completely 
out  of  the  world  that  knew  her,  and  she  had  wept  bit- 
terly when  at  the  end  of  six  months  it  had  been  decided 
that  she  ought  not  to  nurse  her  baby  any  more. 

Diana  had  fallen  out  of  love  with  her  husband  for 
the  simple  reason  that  she  refused  to  have  children  by 
him.  It  was  as  if  Nature  had  said:  "Here  is  this  man 
Manners,  who  might  do  a  great  deal  for  us,  but  who 
doesn't.  We  live  with  him ;  we  even  sleep  with  him ; 
but  he  will  not  give  us  even  that  tiny,  and  to  him  value- 
less and  superfluous,  microorganism  which  we  ask  of 
him.  Therefore  we  repudiate  him." 

So  Nature,  not  Diana,  turned  from  Manners,  and 
fastened  on  What's-his-name.  What's-his-name  hav- 
ing been  sent  about  his  business,  Nature,  and  not 
Diana,  had  turned  to  Fenn. 

Manners  was  beginning  to  see  these  things  clearly. 
Nature,  he  decided,  has  no  use  for  a  man  when  he 


140  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

ceases  to  be  a  potential  father.  But  if  Diana  married 
Fenn  would  she  have  children?  She  had  told  him 
once,  but  in  a  storm  of  anger  and  despair,  that  she 
would  have  as  many  as  Fenn  wanted;  but  Manners, 
knowing  her  acute  hatred  and  fear  of  pain,  had  not 
believed  her.  "She  will  put  the  first  one  off,"  he  had 
thought  at  the  time,  "until  they  are  well  settled,  until 
Fenn  is  more  prosperous,  and  then,  being  no  longer  in 
the  first  glad  raptures  over  Fenn,  she  will  renig."  He 
felt  very  sure  of  this. 

Like  Diana  he  had  always  been  careless  about 
money,  and  extravagant  by  fits  and  starts.  But  it  was 
not  his  fault  that  the  income  which  he  earned  had 
never  been  quite  enough  to  live  on.  Diana  was  to 
blame  for  that.  Manners  now  began  to  contemplate, 
not  without  a  certain  pleasurable  sense  of  righteous- 
ness, a  life  in  which,  freed  from  the  economic  pressure 
which  Diana  exerted,  there  should  be  more  work,  less 
play,  and  far,  far  less  expenditure.  He  and  Tarn,  or 
Tarn  when  he  had  her,  should  live  in  a  small  house  in 
a  very  simple  way.  He  would  accept  more  commis- 
sions than  ever  before ;  he  would  paint  more  hours  than 
ever  before.  Friends,  men  like  Hastings,  would  tell 
him  what  to  do  with  his  spare  cash.  They  had  always 
been  willing  to  do  this  he  knew ;  but  the  spare  cash  had 
always  been  lacking.  When  it  came  time  to  present 
Tarn  to  society  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  not 
be  really  well-off.  He  would  take  a  big  house  then, 
with  big  rooms  in  which  he  could  entertain  for  her. 
Tarn  must  have  beautiful  clothes,  and  lots  of  them. 
Tarn  must  have  lots  of  pocket-money;  horses  to  ride 
and  motors  to  drive.  All  this  achievement  lay  within 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  141 

reach  of  his  talent  and  productive  power.  He  had  only 
to  be  industrious  and  unselfish. 

"If  Diana,"  he  thought,  "puts  herself  ahead  of  her 
duty  to  Tarn ;  if  she  does  this  cruel,  unjust*  and  un- 
called-for thing  to  me — all  right.  But  she  would  be 
ashamed  to  accept  anything  from  me  afterward.  I 
know  that.  I'll  give  her  that  credit." 

But  there  was  one  thing  which  kept  removing  that 
new  simple  life  with  Tarn,  or  a  good  deal  with  Tarn, 
from  the  realms  of  the  possible.  How  could  he  live 
through  the  period  of  transition?  How  could  he  live 
through  the  day  when  he  learned,  from  a  newspaper, 
perhaps,  that  Diana  had  been  married  to  Fenn  ?  How 
could  he  live  through  the  night?  How  could  he  live 
when  all  that  sweetness  that  had  been  his  Eden  was 
being  explored  for  the  delectation  of  another  man? — 
a  man  who  alienated  affections,  who  broke  up  families, 
who  stabbed  in  the  back!  Such  thoughts  were  like 
descents  into  hell.  Sometimes  he  asked  himself  this 
question : 

"I  love  her  more  than  anything  in  this  world:  Do 
I  hope  that  she  will  be  happy  with  Fenn  ?" 

To  this  question  his  mind  returned  a  conventional 
answer.  Of  course  he  wanted  her  to  be  happy,  what- 
ever she  did.  But  he  didn't.  He  was  a  human  being, 
and  of  course  he  didn't. 

The  promise  of  an  early  spring  in  California  was 
very  definite ;  and  the  gradual  descent  from  the  snows 
of  the  Sierras  to  the  emphatic  greens  of  the  Sacra- 
mento Valley  ravished  Manners's  senses  in  spite  of  the 
canker  that  ate  at  his  heart.  If  a  man's  record  in  a 
place  has  been  marked  by  honesty  and  friendliness  his 


142  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

return  to  that  place  must  always  be  a  pleasant  event  in 
his  life.  So  it  proved  with  Manners.  Men  whom  he 
had  thought  of  during  his  absence  as  mere  acquain- 
tances seemed  by  some  mysterious  alchemy  to  have 
been  transformed  into  friends.  He  had  hated  the  San 
Francisco  wind.  He  no  longer  hated  it.  It  was  a 
young,  adventurous  wind.  It  blew  the  streets  full  of 
Romance.  It  stimulated  him  like  wine.  On  every 
hand  he  was  greeted  with  affection.  Even  Mrs.  Ap- 
pleyard  had  forgiven  him  for  abandoning  her  dining- 
room.  She  showed  a  disposition  to  flirt  with  him. 

Then  in  addition,  as  if  by  a  miraculous  and  perhaps 
pitying  dispensation  of  Providence,  a  charming  and 
ingenious  scheme  for  decorating  the  end  of  the  dining- 
room  that  had  the  two  doors  presented  itself  and  in  a 
day  or  two  he  was  up  to  his  ears  in  work.  Work  acted 
upon  him  like  a  strong  tonic.  He  began  to  eat  well, 
and  to  sleep  well,  and  to  enjoy  the  society  of  agreeable 
men  and  pretty  women.  Mrs.  Appleyard's  forgive- 
ness was  complete ;  for  she  saw  that  her  famous  dining- 
room  was  actually  going  to  benefit  from  that  inconsid- 
erate trip  of  Manners  to  New  York.  She  said  that  he 
was  unlike  other  artists.  She  said  that  he  had  a  con- 
science. She  sung  his  praises  far  and  wide  and  loud 
and  high. 

Health  returned  to  him,  and  with  it  the  power  to 
admire,  to  enjoy,  and  to  see  clearly.  "I  am  not  the 
only  husband,"  he  thought,  "who  has  been  stabbed  in 
the  back."  It  fortified  him  to  think  that  he  had  a 
whole  legion  of  unknown  comrades  in  misfortune. 
With  equal  clearness  he  now  saw  that  which  had  been 
self-evident  to  Mary  Hastings:  that  in  the  settlement 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  143 

of  their  family  affairs  neither  he  nor  Diana  must  be 
allowed  to  count  too  much.  Little  Tarn  was  the  great 
personage.  She,  whose  only  argument  was  the  mere 
fact  of  her  existence,  must  be  given  the  first  place. 
And  obviously  it  was  better  for  Tarn  to  grow  up  with 
a  father  and  mother  who  loved  her,  and  whom  she 
loved,  than  with  that  mother  and  a  stepfather,  or  with 
that  father  and  a  governess. 

Mary  Hastings's  letter  in  which  she  described  her 
interview  with  Fenn  and  her  impressions  of  Fenn  dis- 
quieted him;  but  not  too  much.  He  believed  that  he 
could  scare  off  Fenn;  he  believed  that,  if  he  went  very 
calmly  and  kindly  about  it,  he  could  make  Diana  see 
reason.  It  was  easy  to  make  Diana  see  reason  when 
she  wasn't  present,  when  she  was  three  thousand  miles 
away. 

So  he  stopped  torturing  himself  with  the  thought 
that  he  might  have  to  go  through  life  without  her,  and 
some  weeks  before  he  actually  returned  to  New  York 
had  decided  in  every  detail  what  he  should  do  and  say 
when  he  got  there.  Almost  he  may  be  said  to  have 
rehearsed  his  second  home-coming.  He  would  tell 
Diana,  very  patiently  and  gently  (and  nothing  that  she 
said  or  threatened  should  divert  him  from  this  same 
gentleness  and  patience)  that  he  would  not  allow  her 
to  divorce  him  and  that  under  no  circumstances  would 
he  divorce  her.  He  would  sympathize  with  her  hurt. 
He  would  by  no  means  (heaven  forbid)  tell  her  that 
she  had  only  herself  to  blame.  And  he  would  tell  her 
that  she  must  sacrifice  her  personal  feelings  for  the 
good  of  others  and  not  see  Fenn  any  more.  He  would 
point  out  to  her  that  keeping  on  with  Fenn  could  end 


144  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

only  in  scandal  and  disaster.  And  he  would  be  so  kind 
and  gentle  that  she  could  not  but  see  the  thing  as  he 
saw  it.  And  every  day  he  wrote  her  an  affectionate 
letter  in  which  he  touched  on  none  of  those  disagree- 
able issues  which  had  risen  between  them. 

He  left  California  with  genuine  regret.  He  would 
always  be  grateful  to  California  and  the  Californians. 
They  had  drawn  the  soreness  out  of  him,  and  taught 
him  to  think  in  a  new  way.  He  had  learned  to  look 
at  himself  and  Diana  as  from  a  great  distance.  He 
thus  saw  two  diminutive  creatures  whose  feelings  and 
passions  were  of  no  more  importance  to  the  world  at 
large  than  the  peregrinations  of  two  ants  in  the  grass. 
Only  Tarn  mattered.  She  must  grow  up  with  a  strong 
belief  in  the  unity  of  families  and  the  obligations  of 
marriage.  In  order  that  later  on  her  own  choices  of 
conduct  might  be  wise  and  honorable  she  must  have 
in  her  forming  years  a  mother  to  turn  to  as  well  as  a 
father.  She  must  grow  up,  if  not  in  a  real  home,  at 
least  in  the  best  imitation  of  one  which  could  be 
achieved  by  good  breeding  and  good  manners.  Her 
forming  mind  must  not  be  puzzled  and  then  distressed 
by  domestic  problems. 

He  journeyed,  then,  eastward  in  good  health  and 
spirits,  with  money  in  the  bank,  and  the  knowledge  that 
if  he  ever  returned  to  California  he  could  have  as  many 
commissions  for  decorations  and  portraits  as  he  cared 
to  accept. 

The  idea  of  returning  to  California  almost  at  once 
with  Tam  and  Diana  appealed  to  him.  He  had  even 
looked  through  a  few  houses  that  were  for  rent.  A 
new  background  to  set  off  new  faces  would  be  very 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  145 

good  for  Diana.  Those  occasional  disquieting  ear- 
aches which  afflicted  Tarn  would  disappear  entirely  in 
the  dry,  bright  California  climate.  He  imagined  him- 
self saying  "So  that's  all  settled,  dear.  You  are  doing 
the  right  thing.  Now  how  about  Burlingame  for 
the  summer  and  fall?  All  the  people  out  there  will 
simply  love  you,  and  you'll  have  the  time  of  your  life." 
He  pictured  the  zest  for  novelty  overcoming  in  Diana's 
expression,  the  mournful,  persecuted  look  incident 
to  having  seen  Mr.  Ogden  Fenn  for  the  last 
time.  "Why,"  thought.  Manners,  "give  her  three 
months  of  Burlingame,  with  something  doing  all  round 
the  clock,  and  she'll  have  forgotten  what  he  looked 
like.  I  know  it." 

Unfortunately  for  these  comforting  dreams  the 
Diana  who  met  him  in  the  Grand  Central  Station  (he 
had  telegraphed  this  time)  was  not  an  insignificant  ant 
whose  peregrinations  were  of  no  importance.  Instead 
of  that  she  was  his  wife,  beautiful,  beloved,  self-willed, 
and  still  determined  to  wreck  his  home  and  to  hurt 
their  little  daughter's  chances.  She  was  in  good  fight- 
ing trim.  She  had  never  looked  younger,  or  more 
wistfully  beautiful,  or  more  exquisitely  untouched  by 
time.  She  looked  nearer  twenty  than  thirty.  She  no 
longer  controlled  her  nerves  by  an  effort  of  will.  They 
controlled  themselves,  and  Manners  soon  was  to  learn 
that  she  had  built  up  their  renewal  of  nervous  and 
physical  force  upon  a  false  hypothesis.  She  had  clung 
all  along,  it  seemed,  to  those  vague  promises  of  di- 
vorce which  had  been  torn  from  him  in  a  moment  of 
pitying  and  almost  hysterical  chivalry ;  to  his  statement 
that  he  would  think  of  nothing  but  her  happiness;  to 


146  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

her  belief  that  men  like  her  husband  always  kept  their 
word. 

Now  in  justice  to  Manners  it  must  be  remembered 
that  he  had  not  promised  her  a  divorce.  He  had 
merely  accepted  the  idea  of  one.  And  he  had  ac- 
cepted that  idea  without  consulting  Tarn.  Further- 
more, to  work  solely  for  Diana's  happiness  was  not 
necessarily  to  let  her  have  her  own  way.  But  she 
'took  it  for  granted  (or  appeared  to)  that  there  was 
to  be  a  divorce,  and  that  she  was  to  have  her  own 
way  about  everything.  They  drove  at  once  to  the 
Pennsylvania  Station,  and  she  told  him  without  wast- 
ing any  time  that  Fenn  had  consulted  a  lawyer,  and 
that,  take  them  for  all  in  all,  the  laws  of  Maine  offered 
the  best  and  least  conspicuous  untangling  of  their 
marriage  knot.  A  residence  could  be  established  in 
a  year.  She  had  written-  to  Bar  Harbor  about  cot- 
tages. A  year  was  a  long  time  to  wait.  But  she 
would  be  very  brave  about  that.  And  besides,  she 
would  be  able  to  see  Fenn  now  and  then — not  often, 
but  now  and  then.  Laws  were  funny  things.  If  you 
were  going  to  marry  a  man — were,  in  fact,  getting 
your  divorce  for  no  other  reason  than  to  marry  him — 
it  seemed  ridiculous  not  to  see  him  every  day  if  you 
wanted  to.  The  laws  were  silly  and  old-maidish ;  but 
she  supposed  they  had  to  be  obeyed.  And  she  added 
with  the  most  disarming  naivete,  "Apparently  the  real 
reason  why  I  want  a  divorce  doesn't  count  at  all." 

Manners  listened  to  her  in  amazement.  His  inten- 
tion to  tell  her  calmly  and  kindly  that  there  was  to  be 
no  divorce  became  less  resolute.  It  would  lead  him 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  147 

instantaneously  into  a  most  unpleasant  scene.  He 
would  be  accused  of  saying  things  that  weren't  true, 
and  of  making  promises  that  he  had  not  intended  to 
keep.  So  he  compromised  and  procrastinated. 

"Let's  not  thrash  it  all  out  now,"  he  said.  "I've  had 
four  days  and  nights  in  the  train ;  and  I'm  not  up  on 
the  Maine  laws,  though  I  did  think  that  desertion  took 
more  than  a  year." 

"Desertion  does,"  she  said  glibly;  "ever  so  much 
longer,  several  years.  So  of  course  that's  out  of  the 
question." 

"You  told  me  once  that  you  wouldn't  think  of  di- 
vorcing me  on  any  other  ground." 

"Did  I?  I  suppose  I  did,  if  you  say  so.  But  I 
didn't  know  anything  about  the  law  then.  And  be- 
sides, what  difference  does  it  make  if  I've  got  to  sue  on 
grounds  that  don't  exist  anyway?" 

"What  grounds  has  Fenn's  lawyer  advised?" 

Diana  answered  without  hesitation,  but  with  a  note 
of  embarrassment,  if  not  of  actual  shame,  in  her  voice: 

"Why,  cruelty  and  that  sort  of  thing,"  she  said 
hurriedly. 

"Cruelty  and  that  sort  of  thing,"  repeated  Manners. 
And  except  to  ask  if  he  must  buy  two  tickets  or  only 
one  he  did  not  speak  to  her  again  until  they  were  in 
the  train.  He  felt  that  his  heart  was  hardening  against 
her.  It  would  not  be  possible  to  state  whether  his 
strongest  feeling  toward  her  now  was  love  or  con- 
tempt. She  was  willing,'  so  great  was  her  selfishness, 
and  so  cruel  her  callousness,  to  go  before  a  judge  and 
swear  that  he — he,  Francis  Manners — had  been  cruel 
to  her,  and  that  sort  of  thing! 


148  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

Oh,  Diana! 

The  next  day  Diana  went  to  town  by  an  early  train. 
She  seemed  to  take  it  for  granted  that  her  goings  and 
comings  were  no  longer  to  be  questioned.  She  did  not 
say  why  she  was  going,  or  what  she  was  going  to  do, 
or  by  what  train  she  would  return  to  the  country. 

"I  have  stopped  asking  questions,"  said  Mrs.  Lang- 
ham.  "She  knows  that  I  know  what  is  in  the  air ;  but 
she  hasn't  said  a  word  to  me  about  it,  and  I  haven't 
said  a  word  to  her.  Indeed,  we  don't  see  much  of  her 
out  here." 

"I  suppose  not,"  said  Manners,  and  he  added 
grimly:  "They  have  arranged  everything.  Maine  is 
the  chosen  State.  I  am  to  be  divorced  for  cruelty  and 
that  sort  of  thing."  Then  he  laughed  and  added: 
"I  haven't  told  her,"  he  said,  "that  I  am  not  to  be 
divorced  at  all.  I  shall  tell  her  to-night  or  to-morrow. 
My  nerves  are  in  good  shape,  and  I  shall  manage  to 
keep  my  temper.  If  I  had  only  myself  to  consider  I'd 
let  her  go.  But  every  day  I  have  felt  more  and  more 
strongly  that  the  only  person  to  consider  is  Tarn." 

Late  that  afternoon  Diana  telephoned  that  she  was 
dining  at  the  apartment,  and  she  added  with  unneces- 
sary bravado,  Manners  thought,  that  Fenn  was  to  dine 
with  her.  "But  we  are  having  an  early  dinner,"  she 
added,  "and  I'll  be  home  before  ten." 

Except  to  himself  Manners  made  no  comment.  Di- 
ana's voice  over  the  telephone  had  the  joyousness  of 
one  whose  day  has  been  well-spent.  He  made  this 
comment  to  himself,  and  more  in  amazement  than  in 
bitterness:  "She's  crazy!  I  wonder  why  she  still 
speaks  of  this  place  as  home?" 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  149 

After  dinner  Manners  and  his  mother-in-law  sat  in 
the  library  before  a  bright  fire  and  pretended  to  read. 
Several  times  Manners  ran  lightly  up  the  stairs  to  look 
into  the  room  where  his  little  daughter  slept.  So  a 
general  about  to  commit  his  army  to  battle  looks  over 
the  reserves  upon  which  he  may  count  in  case  of  an 
initial  disaster.  In  dealing  with  Diana  he  would  need 
strength  and  stamina,  and  the  continuous  reassurance 
that  his  cause  was  just.  He  was  going  to  hurt  Diana 
horribly.  From  time  to  time  he  looked  at  his  watch. 
If  the  train  was  not  late  Diana  should  reach  the  house 
at  about  a  quarter  before  ten. 

Mrs.  Langham  always  seemed  to  have  an  instinc- 
tive knowledge  of  time.  At  half-past  nine  she  closed 
her  book,  and  veiled  an  incipient  yawn.  Then  she 
rose,  and  stood  for  a  few  moments  with  her  back  to 
the  fire.  "I  sha'n't  sit  up  for  Diana,"  she  said. 
"Shall  you  tell  her  to-night?" 

Manners  walked  to  the  foot  of  the  stair  with  Mrs. 
Langham. 

"I'd  better  tell  her  to-night,"  he  said.  "I  don't  think 
that  I  could  possibly  sleep  on  the  'cruelty  and  that  sort 
of  thing.'  " 

"Frank,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "there's  a  hard  time 
ahead  for  you — for  all  of  us.  Don't  let  anything  that 
Diana  says  or  does  hurt  your  love  for  her.  Your 
whole  future,  yours  and  hers,  is  founded  on  that.  She 
has  treated  you  so  outrageously  that  sometimes  I  am 
afraid  that  your  love  may  change  suddenly  into  some- 
thing else." 

"I  couldn't  ever  stop  loving  Diana,"  said  Manners 
simply,  "but  my  love  has  been  so  snubbed,  abused  and 


150  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

brow-beaten  that  it  has  become  almost  inarticulate. 
Sometimes  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  buried  under  con- 
tempt. But  it's  always  there;  always  ready  to  jump 
to  its  feet,  and  to  forgive.  Don't  be  afraid." 

She  turned  and  went  slowly  up  the  stairs.  From  the 
landing  she  smiled  to  him  and  waved  her  hand. 

He  opened  the  front  door  and  stood  in  the  cold  night 
air  listening  for  the  sounds  of  wheels  on  the  gravel. 
He  looked  at  his  watch.  A  quarter  before  ten.  If 
she  had  found  a  motor  at  the  station  she  should  be 
here  now ;  but  if  there  was  nothing  to  lift  her  home  but 
a  broken-down  hack  drawn  by  a  broken-down  horse 
he  must  have  patience.  And  then  of  course  that  par- 
ticular train  stopped  at  every  station  and  was  almost 
always  late. 

Manners  was  not  the  only  listener  in  the  house. 
Upstairs  at  a  window  which  she  had  opened  Mrs. 
Langham  was  also  listening.  She  had  developed  with 
relation  to  her  son-in-law  a  peculiar  intuitive  sym- 
pathy, by  which  she  was  sometimes  enabled  to  pene- 
trate his  varying  moods,  and  even  to  follow  for  a  time 
his  trains  of  thought.  And  she  knew  that  to-night 
his  mood  was  dangerous.  He  did  not  know  this  him- 
self. He  imagined  that  his  nerves  and  mind  were 
under  perfect  control. 

Mrs.  Langham  heard  the  sound  of  the  front  door 
closing.  Usually  Manners,  who  was  considerate  of 
other  people,  and  very  strong  in  the  hands,  dealt  gently 
with  doors,  and  though  the  sound  which  Mrs.  Lang- 
ham  had  heard  was  not  exactly  a  slam,  it  was  deliber- 
ately emphatic ;  and  she  knew  as  well  as  if  he  had  told 
her  that  the  melancholy  patience  which  her  son-in-law 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  151 

had  exhibited  during  the  evening  was  changing  into 
something  else.  She  closed  her  window  quietly,  and 
stepping  into  the  upper  hall,  leaned  over  the  guard-rail, 
and  called  to  him : 

"This  train  is  nearly  always  late,"  she  said. 

"I  know  it  is." 

He  said  no  more.  Nor  did  she.  But  she  stood 
listening.  He  was  pacing  the  hall  and  the  library 
with  long,  nervous  strides.  Suddenly  he  went  to  the 
telephone,  asked  Central  for  the  correct  time,  and  set 
his  watch  by  it.  Then  he  resumed  his  caged  walk. 
Then  he  once  more  opened  the  front  door  and  listened. 
The  cold  night  air  rushed  into  the  house  and  up  the 
stair.  Mrs.  Langham  could  feel  it  on  her  ankles.  He 
closed  the  door  presently,  and  once  more  attempted 
to  derive  an  explanation  of  Diana's  lateness  from  the 
telephone.  He  tried  to  get  into  connection  with  the 
station-master  at  Westbury,  but  without  success. 

He  was  no  longer  impatient  with  Diana  for  being 
late;  he  was  growing  anxious  for  her  safety.  He 
thought  of  trains  which  roll  over  embankments;  of 
head-on  collisions,  of  passenger  coaches  that  crumple 
up  like  accordions,  of  railroad  fires  in  which  women 
and  children  are  burned  to  death. 

He  gave  the  number  of  the  apartment  to  the  tele- 
phone operator;  but  she  told  him  after  a  long  delay, 
during  which  he  lost  his  temper  and  asked  to  be  con- 
nected with  the  manager,  that  the  number  did  not 
answer. 

Mrs.  Langham  had  withdrawn  into  her  room;  but 
she  had  not  closed  the  door.  She  heard  the  sound  of 
Manners's  feet  on  the  stair.  When  he  was  half-way 


152  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

up  he  perceived  that  her  door  was  open,  and,  raising 
his  voice  a  trifle: 

"Do  you  think  anything  can  have  happened?"  he 
asked. 

Mrs.  Langham  came  out  of  her  room  and  resting 
one  hand  on  the  guard-rail  smiled  down  at  him. 

"No,"  she  said  with  a  cheerful  crispness  that 
brought  an  answering  smile  to  his  face,  "I  don't  think 
anything  can  have  happened." 

"If  she'd  missed  the  train,"  he  said,  "she  would  have 
telephoned.  I'm  afraid  something  may  have  hap- 
pened to  the  train."  Mrs.  Langham  shook  her  head. 

"Nothing  ever  does  happen  to  that  particular  train," 
she  said.  "Lots  of  people  wish  that  something  would 
happen  to  it.  It's  a  disreputable  sluggard,  and  it  has 
trouble  with  its  wheels." 

"How  do  you  mean  ?" 

"Why  sometimes,"  she  said,  "usually  even — they 
don't  go  round  fast  enough !" 

She  had  succeeded  in  making  him  laugh.  He 
wished  her  good-night  again  and,  turning,  descended 
the  stair.  "What  a  brick  she  is,"  he  thought.  "She's 
just  as  much  worried  as  I  am ;  but  she's  too  well-bred 
to  show  it." 

And  in  fact  Mrs.  Langham's  worry  was  as  great  as 
his  own.  But  she  was  not  in  the  least  worried  about 
the  train,  or  the  safety  of  Diana's  person.  She  was 
worried  about  Manners.  It  does  not  do  for  a  wife  to 
be  too  cavalier  with  her  wronged  husband.  And  most 
surely  Diana  had  spent  an  exceedingly  cavalier  day. 
That  she  was  late  was  not  her  fault ;  but  it  was  a  fact 
of  which  she  would  probably  make  light.  When  Man- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  153 

ners  told  her  that  he  had  been  worried  to  death  about 
her  she  would  very  likely  tell  him  that  he  ought  not  to 
be  so  childish.  Neither  of  them  would  be  in  a  mood 
to  discuss  the  ultimatum  which  she  knew  that  Manners 
had  determined  to  deliver  that  night. 

Once  more  she  opened  her  window  and  listened  in- 
tently. This  time  she  heard  the  rattling  and  gasping 
of  a  motor-car  that  might  well  have  been  one  of  the 
station  cars,  but  it  did  not  turn  in  at  their  gate.  Man- 
ners had  also  opened  the  front  door  to  listen  to  the 
passing  of  the  noisy  bolt-worn  machine.  He  had 
stepped  off  the  door-step  and  stood  in  the  middle  of 
the  drive.  Impatience  had  changed  in  his  heart  to 
anxiety.  And  anxiety,  with  a  sudden  shiver  that  shook 
him  from  head  to  foot,  had  changed  to  fear.  And  his 
heart  like  a  telegraphic  transmitter  was  beating  this 
message  into  his  brain: 

"She  isn't  late!  She's  not  coming!  She's  not  com- 
ing by  this  train  or  any  other !  The  fool !  The  idiot ! 
She  couldn't  wait!  She's  bolted  with  him!" 

He  rushed  into  the  house,  leaving  the  front  door 
wide  open,  and  up  the  stair  to  his  room. 

Mrs.  Langham  stood  just  without  his  door.  It 
took  courage  to  knock.  She  knocked.  He  did  not 
answer,  and  with  a  sudden  agony  of  foreboding  she 
pushed  the  door  open. 

Manners  had  kicked  off  his  pumps,  and  was  lacing 
on  a  pair  of  shoes.  He  looked  up  when  the  door 
opened.  His  face  was  ghastly  white. 

"I  don't  believe  she  is  coming,"  he  said.  "I  am 
going  to  look  for  them.  There  is  a  train  at  eleven. 
I  can  catch  it  if  I  run  all  the  way." 


154  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

He  bent  once  more  over  the  knotting  of  his  shoe- 
laces, and  when  this  was  finished  leapt  to  his  feet. 
The  heavy  automatic  pistol  on  the  table  at  the  head  of 
his  bed  caught  his  eye,  and  he  reached  out  his  hand 
for  it. 

Mrs.  Langham's  heart  was  beating  so  fast  that  it 
caused  her  real  distress.  Nevertheless  she  managed 
to  emit  speech  that  was  matter-of-fact  and  sensible. 

"I'll  find  a  bite  of  something  for  you  to  eat  on  the 
way,"  she  said ;  "you'll  need  it." 

And  she  turned  quickly  and  with  the  real  intention 
of  darting  off  upon  this  practical  and  anti-climactical 
errand ;  but  mingled  with  the  night  air  that  came  rush- 
ing into  the  house  through  the  door-way  that  Manners 
had  left  open  were  the  sounds  of  gravel  being  crunched 
under  wheels  and  of  a  horse's  hoofs. 

"There's  Diana  now!"  said  Mrs.  Langham. 

Manners's  fingers,  which  had  closed  on  the  stock  of 
the  automatic,  loosened.  And  a  moment  later  he  was 
darting  down  the  stair,  his  face  all  brightened  with 
relief  and  with  lovingness. 

The  lateness  of  her  train  had  vexed  Diana  as  much 
as  anyone  else.  The  relief  and  lovingness  in  her  hus- 
band's face  were  lost  upon  her. 

"Who  left  the  door  open?"  she  asked,  with  irrita- 
tion. "The  house  is  like  a  barn." 

"Keep  your  coat  on,"  said  Manners,  "and  come  into 
the  library.  There's  a  fine  fire." 

"Has  mamma  gone  to  bed?" 

"She's  retired,"  said  Manners,  which  was  true. 

He  followed  her  into  the  library.  She  turned  her 
back  to  the  fire,  and  stood  finely  poised.  Presently 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  155 

her  husband's  feet  caught  her  eye,  and  she  broke  into 
a  laugh. 

"Look  at  you!"  she  exclaimed.  "Brown  boots 
with  dinner  clothes!" 

"I  was  starting  for  town  to  look  for  you,"  he  said 
gravely.  "I  thought  you  weren't  coming." 

"What  nonsense !" 

"It  may  have  been  nonsense  to  think,"  said  Manners, 
"but  it  wasn't  nonsense  to  feel.  It  was  horrible." 

"Well,"  she  smiled,  but  not  in  real  sympathy  with 
the  horribleness  he  had  experienced,  "here  I  am,  safe 
and  sound.  And  in  about  two  minutes  I'm  going  to 
bed." 

"I've  something  important  to  say  to  you  first." 

Diana  sighed.  Except  for  the  infernal  pokiness  of 
the  train  it  had  been  a  day  of  glory.  And  she  wished 
to  go  to  bed  with  her  memories  of  that  gloriousness 
undimmed. 

"I'd  rather  hear  it  to-morrow  morning,"  she  said. 
"I'm  a  little  tired." 

"What  have  you  been  doing  to  make  yourself  tired?" 

"I  motored  most  of  the  time.  I've  been  all  the  way 
up  to  Combers." 

"Combers?" 

"It's  in  the  Catskills.  It's  a  wonderful  little  moun- 
tain village.  So  wild  and  picturesque,  and  miles  and 
miles  from  any  railway.  Ogden  has  a  tiny  little  house 
up  there.  He  used  often  to  take  a  friend  up  for  over 
Sunday,  and  they'd  climb  mountains  and  have  wonder- 
ful talks.  Such  hills!  You  never  saw  such  hills. 
We  had  a  dandy  little  car  that  Ogden  borrowed  from 
Alfred  Hicks — I  don't  think  you  know  him;  but  two 


156  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

hills  were  so  steep  that  I  didn't  think  we'd  ever  make 
them.  I  had  to  drive  because  Ogden  has  never  had 
motors  and  things." 

Manners  assumed  a  cheerful  interest  which  he  did 
not  feel;  though  he  was  indeed  partially  disarmed  by 
her  frankness  and  naturalness  and  by  the  happy  look 
in  her  eyes. 

"House  nice?"  he  asked. 

"It's  the  dearest  house!"  she  exclaimed,  "all  on  a 
tiny  scale,  of  course;  two  bedrooms,  and  the  rest  to 
match.  And  nobody  within  miles  and  miles  to  bother 
you.  Ogden  has  the  dearest  old  caretaker  with  the 
youngest,  bluest  eyes !  We  had  delicious  fried  chicken 
and  popovers  for  lunch.  And  the  house  was  as  spick 
and  span  as  a  new  coin.  Ogden  thought  I'd  find  lots 
and  lots  of  things  that  would  have  to  be  changed — 
that  was  why  we  went ;  but  I  didn't.  We  could  move 
in  to-morrow." 

All  unconscious  of  the  pain  that  she  was  causing 
him  she  talked  on  and  on.  She  described  the  house, 
room  by  room ;  its  wonderful  location  among  hills  and 
forests.  Of  course  the  spring  was  very  late  'way  up 
there ;  but  there  was  a  distinct  shimmer  of  green  over 
the  trees.  And  then  suddenly  she  realized  how  all  that 
she  was  saying  must  hurt  her  husband.  She  had  the 
impulse  to  reproach  herself,  to  beg  for  forgiveness, 
and  in  kneeling  in  the  spirit,  as  it  were,  to  crave  his 
mercy  and  his  permission  to  keep  on  in  the  pursuit  of 
that  course  which  she  told  herself  she  could  by  no  means 
help  pursuing.  But  the  impulse  came  to  nothing. 
She  simply  could  not  say  such  things.  She  could  only 
feel  them.  So  she  stopped  talking;  and  drumming 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  157 

with  one  hand  on  the  mantelpiece  looked  shyly  into 
her  husband's  face  and  waited  for  him  to  speak. 

"It  seems  to  have  been  a  wonderful  day,"  he  said 
presently,  "blue  and  without  clouds.  Perhaps  that's 
a  good  thing.  Perhaps  it  will  be  a  help  to  have  such 
a  day  to  look  back  on.  God  knows  I  don't  begrudge  it 
to  you.  Will  you  come  and  sit  down  by  me?  It's 
hard  for  me  to  say  to  you  what  I  have  to." 

She  sat  down  beside  him  on  the  sofa  which  in  winter 
was  placed  quite  close  to  the  fireplace.  But  she  did 
not  lean  back  against  the  cushions.  All  her  defensive 
instincts  had  taken  alarm.  Manners  spoke  slowly,  and 
with  the  most  painstaking  gentleness. 

"Our  problem,"  he  said,  "has  never  been  out  of  my 
mind,  even  when  I  was  working  hardest.  At  first  I 
jumped  about  from  one  solution  to  another.  Some- 
times I'd  rest  on  the  true  solution  for  a  while  only  to 
abandon  it.  But  at  last,  quite  a  long  time  ago  now,  I 
came  to  rest  on  the  true  solution  and  stayed  there." 

Diana  was  frightened.  But  from  the  tone  of  her 
voice  he  judged  that  she  was  merely  impatient. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "what  is  the  true  solution?" 

"First,"  he  said,  "you  must  believe  that  I  have  no 
selfish  motives  in  the  decision  I  have  come  to.  You 
mustn't  think  of  me  as  a  man  who  because  of  his  love 
for  her  intends  to  keep  prisoner  a  woman  who  wishes 
to  be  free.  And  the  proof  is  this,  Diana :  Even  in  my 
own  heart  I  no  longer  think  of  you  as  my  wife.  If  the 
problem  concerned  only  you  and  me,  you  should  go 
free  as  soon  as  freedom  could  be  arranged  for  you. 
But  the  problem  concerns  you  and  me  so  little  that  we 
mustn't  consider  ourselves,  any  more  than  outsiders, 


158  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

impartial  judges,  would  consider  us.  The  problem  con- 
cerns Tarn  so  much  that  it  hardly  concerns  anyone  else 
at  all.  You  have  forced  me  to  give  you  up,  and  that 
is  a  profound  grief  to  me,  but  for  Tarn's  sake  I  have 
found  strength  to  take  the  gaff.  For  Tarn's  sake,  my 
dear,  for  she  needs  us  both,  you  must  find  the  strength 
to  do  what  you  have  forced  me  to  do.  You  must  make 
your  big  sacrifice,  and  give  up  Fenn." 

She  made  no  answer.  She  was  leaning  forward 
now,  her  chin  in  her  hands,  staring  into  the  dying  fire. 
She  seemed  to  have  listened.  She  appeared  to  be  re- 
flecting. He  thought  that  he  had  made  an  impression 
on  her. 

"In  time,  my  dear,"  he  said,  "all  this  great  storm  of 
feeling  will  blow  away.  That  is  what  I  think.  But  I 
am  not  sure.  Maybe  you  will  never  stop  caring.  But 
a  time  will  surely  come  when  you  will  be  glad  that  you 
made  this  great  renunciation  for  the  sake  of  a  helpless 
little  child,  of  a  little  child  who  depends  on  you,  who 
is  destined  to  be  made  or  unmade  by  the  quality  of 
our  love  for  her."  She  said  nothing. 

"Diana,  darling,"  he  said,  "I  have  only  love  and  for- 
giveness for  you."  Now  she  spoke  in  a  low  tense 
voice : 

"I  don't  see  how  you  can  bear  the  thought  of  keep- 
ing me  if  I  don't  want  to  stay." 

"I  don't  want  to  keep  you  against  your  will.  But 
for  Tarn's  sake  I  must  keep  you." 

"You  put  it  all  on  Tam.  And  that  is  just  a  pre- 
tense." 

"It  is  not,  Diana." 

"Oh,  it  enters  in!    I  know  that.     But  you  want  to 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  159 

keep  me  because  you  want  to  keep  me,  and  that  is  all 
there  is  to  it." 

Neither  of  them  spoke  for  a  full  minute.  The  un- 
reasonableness and  injustice  against  which  she  forced 
him  to  contend,  the  frantic  state  of  anxiety  and  then 
of  homicidal  rage  into  which  her  innocent  lateness  had 
thrown  him,  the  unintentionally  cruel  account  of  the 
blissful  day  which  she  had  spent  with  Fenn,  were 
rapidly  breaking  down  the  bulwark  of  toleration  and 
gentleness  which  he  had  erected  against  just  such 
assailants. 

"Make  what  you  like  of  my  motive,"  he  said,  "call 
it  unadulterated  selfishness  if  that  gives  you  satisfac- 
tion. You  have  piled  so  much  injustice  on  me  that  I 
can  stand  up  under  a  little  more.  Whatever  my  motive 
is,  my  decision  is  fixed  and  irrevocable.  I  will  neither 
give  you  a  divorce  nor  divorce  you.  My  lawyer  tells 
me  that  any  judge  to  whom  you  carried  no  worse  com- 
plaints than  you  have  to  make  of  me  would  give  you 
such  a  dressing-down  as  you  would  never  forget.  In 
the  eyes  of  the  law  you  are  a  spoiled,  wilful,  pampered 
woman  suffering  from  an  acute  attack  of  guilty  affec- 
tion. There  are  only  two  courses  open  to  you.  One 
is  to  do  right  and  to  throw  off  this  man's  evil  and  per- 
nicious influence.  The  other  is  to  add  to  the  wrong 
done  a  wrong  still  greater,  and  to  precipitate  scandal 
and  disaster."  His  eyes  had  an  angry  glare  in  them. 

"If  you  and  Fenn  cheat  me,"  he  said,  his  voice 
vibrant  and  ugly,  "I  wrill  kill  him.  If  you  run  away 
with  him  I  will  track  you  down  and  kill  him."  She 
rose  abruptly  and  her  eyes,  too,  glared  angrily.  "Do 
you  imagine  that  Ogden  Fenn  is  afraid  of  you?"  she 


160  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

said.  And  the  question  was  at  once  an  insult  and 
a  sneer. 

Rage  possessed  Manners.  If  the  primitive  man  had 
been  stronger  in  him,  and  the  accumulated  civilization 
weaker,  he  would  have  struck  her,  and  kept  on  striking 
her  until  she  was  insensible.  It  is  possible  that  if  he 
had  done  this  the  stream  of  their  lives  might  have  been 
turned  aside  from  the  tragic  channel  into  which  it  was 
ever  plunging  more  swiftly  and  more  deeply.  But  it 
was  only  in  his  imagination  that  he  struck  her,  and  it 
was  only  in  hers  that  she  felt  the  blow.  Manners  set 
his  teeth  tight  together. 

"If  he  isn't  afraid  of  me,"  he  said,  "he's  a  fool !" 

Her  beautiful  little  head  went  up  proudly ;  and  her 
eyes  were  bright  and  glorious  with  love  for  the  man 
whom  she  defended. 

"Kill  us  both!"  she  said.  "What  do  we  care?  .  .  . 
We  shall  have  lived !" 

She  was  gorgeous  in  her  challenge  and  in  her  de- 
fiance. 

Late  that  night  she  knocked  on  the  door  between 
their  rooms.  He  was  not  asleep. 

"Frank,"  she  said,  her  voice  practical  and  business- 
like, but  neither  cold  nor  unkind,  "is  your  decision 
really  fixed  and  irrevocable?" 

"Yes,  Diana.    Why?" 

"Because  I  have  to  know.     Good-night." 

Toward  morning  when  he  had  exhausted  every 
mental  emotion  of  which  he  was  capable  he  fell  into 
a  heavy  sleep.  He  did  not  wake  till  ten  o'clock.  Mrs. 
Langham  had  told  the  servants  not  to  call  him. 

"He'd  simply  learn  a  little  sooner,"  she  thought, 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  161 

"that  Diana  has  gone  to  town  by  the  early  train. 
That  sort  of  knowledge  keeps  splendidly.  He's  best 
asleep." 

But  if  she  had  known  that  before  she  went  to  ner 
train  Diana  had  tiptoed  into  his  room  and  stood  for 
a  long  time  looking  at  him;  if  she  had  known  that  a 
lump  had  risen  in  Diana's  throat  when  she  saw  how 
gray  he  was  getting,  and  if  she  had  known  that  Diana 
had  left  a  note  on  the  table  at  the  head  of  his  bed, 
and  that  in  that  note  she  had  said  that  since  his  de- 
cision was  fixed  and  irrevocable  she  was  going  away 
with  Fenn,  and  praying  him  not  to  hurt  the  man  she 
loved,  but  to  let  them  find  such  happiness  as  might  be 
possible  for  them — why,  then,  of  course,  Mrs.  Lang- 
ham  would  have  had  him  called. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

To  her  mother,  Diana  had  shown  at  parting  a 
placid  and  matter-of-fact  mood.  She  had  even  found 
time  to  romp  a  little  with  Tarn.  There  was  nothing 
to  distinguish  this  particular  departure  of  hers  from 
any  other.  She  left  the  house  as  if  her  return  to  it 
was  a  mere  matter  of  course. 

Manners  was  more  affected  by  the  sight  of  the 
envelope  containing  Diana's  note  than  by  his  perusal 
of  the  note  itself.  The  envelope,  addressed  in  his 
wife's  bold,  swift  writing,  and  propped  against  the 
stem  of  his  reading-lamp,  had  an  ominous  and  fatal 
look.  It  suggested  things  which  have  to  be  written 
because  people  cannot  find  the  courage  to  say  them. 
"Look  within,"  it  seemed  to  say,  "if  you  dare;  for  I 
have  that  within  me  which  is  worse  than  anything 
you  have  yet  known."  His  soul  leapt  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  worst  had  happened.  So  that  it  was 
with  a  feeling  of  relief  that  he  read  the  note  and 
learned,  not  that  the  worst  had  happened,  but — and 
herein  lay  a  crumb  of  hope — that  the  worst  had  been 
determined  on  and  was  going  to  happen. 

Somewhat  to  his  own  surprise  he  did  not  begin  to 
rave  and  foam  at  the  mouth.  He  felt  no  new  sense 
of  outrage  and  injustice.  Instead  it  seemed  to  him 
as  if  some  horribly  involved  knot  which  he  had  long 
struggled  to  untie  had  been  cut,  and  that  he  was  at 

162 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  163 

last  free  to  act.  He  need  no  longer  play  the  brood- 
ing, introspective,  irresolute  role  of  a  modern  Hamlet. 
Now  at  last  he  was  free  to  play  the  man ;  to  stamp  the 
foot  and  draw  the  sword ! 

It  was  no  longer  a  turgid  and  muddied  current  that 
fed  his  brain;  but  a  stream  clear,  lucid  and  bright. 
His  fighting-blood  was  rising.  And  he  saw  at  once 
that  the  fight  before  him  was  not  to  destroy  or  to 
avenge,  but  to  save.  He  knew  at  last  how  dear 
Diana's  good  name  was  to  him,  and  how  invaluable 
to  her.  He  would  save  that  for  her  in  the  teeth  of  a 
whole  regiment  of  Fenns. 

He  had  intended  to  say  nothing  to  Mrs.  Langham. 
Unfortunately,  just  before  he  left  the  house,  he  was 
called  to  the  telephone,  and  Mrs.  Langham,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  hall,  overheard  some  sentences  of  a 
short  conversation  which  he  had  with  Mary  Hastings. 
She  had  asked  him  to  dine  with  them  that  night  and 
to  go  to  the  play.  And  he  had  forgotten  to  answer 
the  invitation.  She  now  wanted  to  know  if  he  would 
come  or  if  he  would  not.  He  apologized  emphatically 
for  his  rudeness  in  not  answering.  And  then,  as  an 
excuse  for  not  accepting,  he  heard  himself  saying  (to 
his  own  amazement,  for  the  thought  had  been  born 
suddenly  at  the  telephone  together  with  a  whole  train 
of  action  that  went  with  it),  "Ogden  Fenn  is  very 
anxious  to  show  Diana  his  little  house  near  Combers 
in  the  Catskills.  She  can't  very  well  go  alone,  and 
so  we  are  all  three  going  up  for  the  night  What  do 
you  think  of  that?"  His  voice  was  gay  and  cheerful. 
The  good  red  fighting-blood  was  not  only  in  his  brain 
but  it  was  in  his  larynx. 


164  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

These  were  the  sentences  which  Mrs.  Langham  had 
accidentally  overheard.  Ordinarily  she  would  have 
suppressed  every  sign  that  would  show  her  knowl- 
edge of  them.  But  for  once  that  curiosity  which  agi- 
tates even  the  wisest  of  women  overcame  her. 

"Frank!"  she  exclaimed,  "what  do  you  mean?" 

"Perhaps  it's  best  for  you  to  know,"  he  said.  He 
took  from  his  pocket  the  note  which  Diana  had  left 
for  him,  and  handed  it  to  her  without  comment. 
When  she  had  read  it  she  said: 

"You  think  they  will  go  to  this  place  in  the  Cats- 
kills?" 

"I  feel  as  sure  of  it  as  if  they  had  told  me.  Don't 
worry  too  much.  I  sha'n't  kill  Fenn  if  it  can  be 
helped.  I  believe  that  I  shall  save  Diana,  and  that 
fright  will  do  the  rest.  I  have  the  feeling  that  after 
to-day  Mr.  Ogden  Fenn  will  not  trouble  her  or  me  any 
more.  Suppose  you  go  into  town  later.  Go  to  the 
Colony  Club.  You'll  see  lots  of  people  you  know. 
They'll  ask  after  Diana  and  me.  Say  that  we've 
gone  to  Combers  with  Ogden  Fenn  to  dine  and  spend 
the  night.  Say  that  he's  a  great  friend  of  ours." 

"Shall  you  go  to  the  Club?" 

"To  borrow  a  motor.  No  train  goes  within  miles 
of  Combers." 

"You'll  have  to  say  where  you  are  going.  You 
ought  to  have  some  luggage." 

"True!"  exclaimed  Manners,  tind  he  darted  up- 
stairs, for  there  was  still  time  to  pack  a  bag.  It  was 
a  badly-packed  bag  when  he  had  finished,  and  the 
heterogeneous  contents  caught  up  at  random  from 
chairs  and  from  the  library  table  were  held  in  place 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  165 

by  a  tan  pillow  from  his  sofa.  He  transferred  to  the 
bag  the  heavy  automatic  which  he  had  at  first  placed 
in  his  hip  pocket,  and  where  its  size  and  weight  were 
already  turning  it  into  a  nuisance. 

A  few  minutes  later  he  had  kissed  Tarn  good-by 
and  was  on  his  way  to  the  station. 

The  day  had  turned  warm.  Many  of  the  bulbs 
which  Tarn  and  Mrs.  Langham  had  planted  were  in 
bloom.  The  trees  and  bushes  were  all  dressed  in 
green  now,  and  the  summery  whirring  of  a  lawn- 
mower  broke  the  stillness. 

Tam  stood  on  the  doorstep  until  the  motor  con- 
taining her  father  had  disappeared  behind  a  promon- 
tory of  lilacs.  She  adored  him,  and  his  departure 
even  for  short  absences  had  the  power  to  cast  a  mo- 
mentary gloom  over  her  bright  and  tender  spirit. 
The  new  puppy,  a  creature  all  wags  and  paws,  came 
woggling  and  galumphing  around  the  corner  of  the 
house.  And  from  Tarn's  spirit  the  gloom  was  swept 
away  by  her  own  piercing  cry  of  joy. 

On  entering  his  club  Manners  learned,  with  some- 
thing of  the  elation  experienced  by  a  poker  player 
when  at  last  a  good  hand  has  been  dealt  him,  that  his 
cousin,  Peter  Manners,  was  in  the  reading-room.  He 
knew  no  man  more  able  and  willing  to  help  him,  no 
man  so  discreet,  and  no  man  of  whom  he  was  so 
fond. 

Peter  Manners  had  inherited  a  small  fortune,  and 
without,  so  his  admirers  insisted,  ever  going  south  of 
Twenty-third  Street,  had  turned  it  into  a  big  one. 
Nature  had  showered  him  with  the  most  pleasing  and 
comfortable  gifts;  and  his  world  was  ready  to  give 


i66  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

him  whatever  he  asked  for.  He  was  supposed  to  lack 
the  marrying  instinct;  but  Frank  Manners  knew  that 
this  was  not  so,  and  that  his  cousin  had  been  in  love 
for  many  years  with  a  woman  whom  he  could  not  pos- 
sibly marry.  He  could  not  even  tell  her  that  he  loved 
her.  It  is  probable  that  she  knew  of  his  love,  but  did 
not  realize  its  depth  or  its  beauty;  she  thought  of  it 
perhaps  as  that  pretty  sentiment  of  regret  and  agita- 
tion without  which  no  bachelor,  who  is  all  things  to  a 
good  many  people,  is  complete.  Upon  her  birthday 
flowers  always  came  from  him.  But  then  there  were 
other  women,  like  Mary  Hastings,  who  invariably  re- 
ceived flowers  from  him  upon  their  birthdays.  Often 
when  the  woman  he  loved  and  her  husband  were  hard- 
up,  he  found  ways  to  make  life  easier  and  more  agree- 
able for  them.  He  would  complain  that  his  runabout 
did  not  drive  as  he  wished,  and  he  would  beg  them,  as 
a  favor,  to  take  it  off  his  hands,  if  they  happened  to 
need  a  car,  and  break  it  in  for  him..  He  was  ready  to 
lend  the  husband  any  amount  of  money  at  any  time, 
and  in  subtle  and  hidden  ways  he  helped  the  husband 
in  his  career.  If  they  had  both  died  he  would  have 
adopted  their  child  and  made  a  fairy  princess  of  her. 
The  husband,  who  knew  of  their  love,  would  have 
trusted  his  wife  with  Peter  Manners  upon  a  desert 
island.  In  addition,  the  men  loved  each  other  like 
brothers,  and  it  had  been  like  that  with  them  ever  since 
they  were  children. 

Peter  Manners  was  the  sole  occupant  of  the  reading- 
room,  and  this  made  it  possible  for  the  two  cousins  to 
disregard  the  notice  which  urged  upon  members  of  the 
club  the  beauty  of  refraining  from  conversation.  When 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  167 

they  had  shaken  hands,  Frank  Manners  at  once  asked 
his  cousin  if  he  could  lend  him  a  car.  He  explained 
why: 

"Diana  and  I,"  he  said,  "are  going  up  to  Combers, 
to  dine  and  spend  the  night  with  Ogden  Fenn.  There's 
only  one  good  train  and  I've  missed  it.  They've  caught 
it,  and  it  will  look  queer  to  the  natives  if  they  get  off 
at  the  station,  bag  and  baggage,  and  me  not  with  them. 
If  you'll  lend  me  a  car  I  believe  I  can  get  to  the  station 
before  them.  I  might.  It's  worth  trying  and,  anyway, 
there  isn't  another  train  till  late  afternoon,  and  Fenn 
has  no  telephone.  I've  got  to  get  there  somehow." 

"Why,  of  course  you  have,"  said  Peter  Manners. 
He  rose  with  a  certain  languor  and,  his  eyes  smiling 
in  the  most  kindly  way,  clapped  an  arm  about  his 
cousin's  shoulder  and  gave  him  an  affectionate 
squeeze. 

"You  shall  have  a  car,"  he  said,  "and  you  shall  have 
company." 

Their  eyes  met,  and  the  eyes  of  the  man  who  had 
been  lying  to  his  best  friend  soon  shifted  into  dis- 
comfort. 

"Cassius,"  said  Peter  Manners,  "hath  a  lean  and 
hungry  look.  Also  no  railroad  runs  within  fifteen 
miles  of  Combers.  Have  you  a  gun?" 

Francis  Manners  was  glad  that  his  attempts  to  de- 
ceive had  failed.  He  could  meet  his  friend's  eye  now. 
His  friend  would  go  with  him.  Everything  seemed 
easier. 

"It's  in  my  bag,"  he  said. 

"You've  had  the  sense  to  bring  a  display  of  luggage. 
Good." 


168  THE   WILD   GOOSE 

"Mrs.  Langham  suggested  it." 

"She  would.  You  will  turn  the  gun  over  to  me. 
Now  I'll  telephone  to  my  garage,  and  you'll  order  a 
very  large  package  of  sandwiches — ham  and  chicken 
— fifty-fifty.  Just  because  Rome  is  burning,  Troy 
falling,  and  Helen  skipping  off  with  Paris,  is  no  reason 
why  the  Manners  cousins  should  deny  themselves  food. 
Are  you  sure  they  are  going  to  Combers?" 

"Combers  is  the  one  best  bet,"  said  Francis  Manners. 

For  many  reasons  which  seemed  good  to  him,  Peter 
Manners  made  light  of  the  expedition. 

"We  mustn't  forget,"  he  said,  "that  it  is  a  beautiful 
day,  that  we  are  fond  of  motoring,  and  that  we  are 
going  to  see  some  beautiful  country." 

But  he  listened  with  the  most  considerate  sympathy 
and  attention  to  all  that  Francis  Manners  had  to  tell 
him  about  Diana.  And  although  he  did  not  take 
Diana's  side,  for  it  was  obvious  to  him  that  she  had 
none,  he  stood  up  for  her,  and  recalled  times  when  the 
fine  traits  in  her  character  had  shone  like  pure  gold. 
But  the  advice  which  he  gave  to  his  cousin  had  a 
chivalrous  rather  than  a  worldly  base.  And  he  in- 
sisted that  Diana's  happiness  and  her  good  name  were 
the  most  important  issues  involved  in  the  problem. 

"It  is  possible,"  he  said,  "for  any  man  to  live  with- 
out any  woman ;  to  be  cheerful  in  his  renunciation  and 
to  make  a  good  many  things  pleasanter  for  other 
people." 

"You  yourself  are  the  best  possible  example  of 
that,"  said  Francis  Manners,  "and  I  take  off  my  hat  to 
you.  I've  loved  as  faithfully  as  you  have  and  for  more 
years.  I've  had  the  luck  to  be  loved  back.  I  married 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  169 

the  girl  I  wanted.  And  if  we  weren't  perfectly  happy 
together,  we  came  as  close  to  perfect  happiness  as  any 
two  human  beings  ever  did.  But  now  that  I've  lost 
out ;  now  that  I'm  in  the  same  boat  that  you've  had  to 
row  so  long,  instead  of  behaving  like  a  cheerful  gentle- 
man and  thinking  like  one,  I  think  and  behave  like  a 
half -crazy  egomaniac." 

"I  used  to  say  to  myself,"  said  Peter  Manners,  "she 
loves  another  man ;  they  are  as  happy  together  as  two 
human  beings  ever  have  been ;  but  even  at  that  she  can't 
be  perfectly  happy;  now  what  can  I  do  to  make  her  the 
least  little  bit  happier  than  she  is?  Of  course  there 
never  was  much  of  anything  that  I  could  do ;  but  think- 
ing along  these  lines  was  mighty  good  for  me  per- 
sonally." 

"I  can't  think  along  those  lines." 

"You  mean  you  won't.  I  don't  know  of  anything 
worth  doing  that  you  can't  do.  You  must  think  more 
of  just  what  you  can  do  to  make  Diana  happy." 

"But  she'll  fall  out  of  love  with  this  fellow  just  as 
she's  fallen  out  of  love  with  me." 

"We  don't  know  that.  And  we  do  know  that  she's 
game  to  run  away  with  him.  We  are  going  to  save  her 
reputation  this  time,  I  hope  and  believe.  The  next  time 
it  won't  be  so  easy  to  guess  where  they  have  gone." 

"Do  you  think  I  ought  to  furnish  grounds?" 

"I  think  that  you  ought  to  make  her  the  most  gen- 
erous proposition  that  can  be  made." 

"I  listen,"  said  Francis  Manners,  "but  I  don't  prom- 
ise to  obey." 

For  a  few  moments  the  congestion  of  a  short  village 


170  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

street  required  careful  driving,  and   Peter   Manners 
didn't  answer.    Then  he  said: 

"Tell  her,"  he  said,  "that  you  will  furnish  grounds 
— New  York  grounds — so  that  she  can  get  her  divorce 
quickly  and  easily.  Tell  her  that  you  will  let  her  have 
Tarn,  and  that  you  will  give  her  all  the  alimony  you 
can  possibly  earn." 

Neither  of  them  spoke  for  a  long  time.  Then  Fran- 
cis Manners  said : 

"You  think  that  perhaps  she  wouldn't  have  the  heart 
to  accept  those  terms  ?" 

"I  think  it's  an  even  bet  with  the  odds  in  your  favor. 
But  I  shouldn't  burst  in  on  them  and  make  that  propo- 
sition right  off  the  bat.  And  whatever  you  do,  don't 
scold  and  rant.  And  don't  let  her  see  that  you  hate 
Fenn." 

And  for  minutes  Peter  Manners  outlined  at  great 
length  a  plan  of  procedure  which  he  thought  ought  to 
be  adopted.  Francis  Manners  didn't  at  once  fall  in 
with  this  plan,  but  in  the  end  he  agreed  to  adopt  it, 
and  to  play  his  part  in  it  to  the  best  of  his  ability. 

Soon  they  left  the  main  arteries  of  travel,  and  had 
to  proceed  more  slowly.  Peter  Manners  had  passed 
more  than  once  through  the  village  of  Combers,  but 
he  was  somewhat  vague  as  to  its  exact  location;  and 
he  had  no  memory  whatever  of  the  roads  by  which  it 
was  to  be  reached.  Stopping  to  make  inquiries  and  a 
puncture  delayed  them.  In  both  men  the  excitement 
of  the  chase  was  rising.  Neither  would  admit  for  one 
moment  that  the  elopers  might  have  fled  to  any  other 
place  than  Fenn's  house  near  Combers. 

It  was  possible,  however,  that  they  had  not  eloped 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  171 

at  all.  It  was  possible  that  Fenn  had  refused  to  com- 
mit Diana  to  an  irretrievable  error.  It  was  possible 
that  Diana  was  spending  the  day  in  her  apartment 
sulking. 

In  any  event  Fenn  would  not  have  taken  her  to  his 
own  rooms,  for  even  the  most  ardent  lover  does  not 
relish  the  idea  of  being  shot ;  and  that  lover's  room  was 
the  first  likelihood  that  would  enter  an  angry  hus- 
band's mind.  No.  Combers  was  the  place. 

At  Combers  they  learned  from  an  elderly  man  who 
loafed  on  the  steps  of  the  grocery  store,  and  occasion- 
ally spat,  that  Mr.  Ogden  Fenn  had  passed  through 
the  town  not  ten  minutes  before.  He  had  passed 
through  in  a  dark  red  car  driven  by  a  lady.  Peter 
Manners  expressed  surprise  and  regret. 

"Did  they  ask  if  we  had  passed  through?"  he  asked. 
They  had  not. 

"We  made  a  bet  on  who'd  get  here  first,"  Peter 
Manners  explained.  "We  gave  them  a  good  head 
start,  and  came  by  a  different  road;  a  better  road  we 
thought  and  a  shorter."  He  turned  to  his  cousin,  and 
said  ruefully,  "I'll  have  to  write  Mr.  Ogden  Fenn  a 
cheque,  and  you'll  have  to  buy  your  wife  a  new  hat." 

The  loafer  told  them  how  to  reach  Mr.  Fenn's  house, 
and  he  chuckled  and  winked  as  if  the  idea  that  they 
had  lost  their  bet  was  pleasant  to  him. 

Francis  Manners  was  profoundly  thankful  that  he 
had  not  come  alone.  He  had  the  greatest  reliance  on 
his  cousin's  tact  and  resourcefulness.  And  in  that  calm 
and  cheering  companionship  he  could  keep  his  own 
nerves  and  temper  in  hand.  Nevertheless  his  heart 
began  to  beat  furiously  at  the  sight  of  Ogden  Fenn's 


172  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

little  house,  and  it  seemed  cruel  to  him  that  he  must 
not  burst  down  the  front  door  and  do  murder  with  his 
bare  hands. 

They  left  the  car  at  the  side  of  the  road,  and,  Fran- 
cis Manners  carrying  his  traveling  bag,  finished  the 
tag  end  of  their  journey  on  foot. 

The  arrangements  of  the  little  house  were  extremely 
simple.  The  main  block  contained  a  hall  and  living- 
room  in  one  and  a  small  dining-room.  Above  these 
were  two  bed-rooms  separated  by  a  bath-room,  and  a 
large  closet.  A  small  block  contained  the  butler's  pan- 
try, the  kitchen  and  the  caretaker's  room.  The  front 
door  was  ajar,  and  the  Manners  cousins  pushed  it 
open  and  entered  the  house  without  knocking. 

Diana  had  not  yet  removed  her  hat  or  coat.  It  was 
cold  in  the  house,  and  Ogden  Fenn,  on  his  knees,  was 
coaxing  a  fire  into  life.  Diana  stood  at  a  little  distance 
watching  him.  The  backs  of  the  lovers  were  turned 
so  that  the  expression  of  their  faces  could  not  be  seen. 
It  was  not  so  much  the  sound  of  the  cousins'  entrance 
as  some  abrupt  intuition  that  caused  Diana  to  turn  and 
look  over  her  shoulder.  Fenn,  intent  on  the  fire,  and 
making  considerable  noise  with  his  logs  and  kindlings, 
did  not  hear  the  exclamation  of  dismay  and  fear  that 
was  torn  from  her. 

But  when  she  made  two  sudden  steps  to  place  her- 
self between  him  and  her  husband,  he  looked  up  and 
around.  The  heavy  log  that  he  had  been  about  to  place 
scientifically  fell  from  his  hands  with  a  thud.  He 
scrambled  to  his  feet,  white  and  trembling.  He  ex- 
pected to  be  killed. 

"Mr.  Fenn,"  said  Francis  Manners,  "it  is  perfectly 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  173 

safe  for  you  to  come  out  from  behind  my  wife.  I  am 
not  in  a  shooting  mood." 

"We're  in  a  sort  of  week-end  mood,"  said  Peter 
Manners.  He  advanced  with  a  very  pleasant  cheerful- 
ness and  laid  his  hat  and  gloves  on  the  table  that  was 
in  the  center  of  the  hall,  and  then,  very  carefully  and 
methodically,  he  began  to  unbutton  his  greatcoat. 

"The  whole  world,"  he  explained,  "knows  that  Mr. 
Fenn  has  asked  all  us  Mannerses  to  dine  and  spend  the 
night." 

"Oh,"  said  Diana  drearily  and  in  the  voice  of  one 
who  is  suffering  physical  pain.  "I'll  go  back  with 
you." 

"That  wouldn't  be  polite  to  Fenn,"  said  Peter  Man- 
ners. "People  would  say  that  having  tested  his  hos- 
pitality we  had  found  it  wanting.  We  have  even 
brought  our  luggage.  We  have  brought  everything  we 
need  except  things  for  the  night  and  toothbrushes  and 
hairbrushes  and  things  like  that." 

"Diana,"  said  her  husband,  who  had  been  standing 
aloof,  his  face  drawn  and  ghost  white,  "we  have  come 
because  when  a  woman's  good  name  goes,  her  last 
chance  of  happiness  goes  too.  Fenn  knows  that.  And 
if  he  really  represents  your  chance  of  happiness,  I 
couldn't  hurt  him.  I  love  you  too  much.  I've  come 
to  talk  things  over,  and  I've  brought  Peter.  Fenn  was 
very  foolish  to  bring  you  here;  but  there's  no  great 
harm  done." 

"It's  all  my  fault,"  said  Diana,  "he  didn't  want  to 
run  away  with  me." 

"Mighty  hard  not  to  run  away  with  you,  Diana, 
when  you  are  really  insistent,"  said  Peter  Manners. 


174  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"It  seems,"  said  Francis  Manners,  "that  Fenn  and  I 
both  love  you  very  much.  Can't  you  leave  your  hap- 
piness in  our  hands  and  do  what  we  think  is  best  for 
you  ?"  Tears  rose  in  Diana's  eyes. 

"With  two  men  loving  me  so  much,"  she  said,  "I 
ought  not  to  complain  about  anything." 

Peter  Manners,  having  divested  himself  of  the  great- 
coat, came  close  to  her,  and  took  one  of  her  hands  in 
both  his.  It  was  cold,  and  he  began  to  pat  and 
stroke  it." 

"Diana,  dear,"  he  said,  "there  are  not  two  men  who 
love  you,  but  three.  Did  you  never  guess  that  the  man 
who  was  best  man  at  your  wedding  would  have  given 
his  soul,  everything  but  his  honor,  to  be  the  groom? 
Have  you  never  guessed  why  I  haven't  married?  I 
love  you  with  my  whole  heart  and  soul.  But  you  were 
engaged  to  Frank,  or  almost  engaged  to  him,  when  I 
found  this  out.  And  I  am  not  the  kind  of  man  to 
break  down  another  man's  fences  and  trample  on  his 
flowers." 

"I  give  you  my  word  of  honor,"  exclaimed  Fenn 
suddenly,  "that  I  am  not  as  black  as  you  paint  me !" 

"Ah,"  said  Peter  Manners,  "you  mistook  what  was 
left  of  the  garden  for  a  piece  of  pasture  land.  You 
didn't  know  that  to  Francis  Manners  it  was  still  a 
garden.  And  that  in  a  heart  sorely  tried,  and  hurt,  he 
still  hoped  to  build  up  the  fences  and  coax  the  flowers 
back." 

"Peter,"  said  Diana  simply,  "and  Frank:  I  made 
Ogden  think  that  I  had  been  terribly  abused  and  mis- 
understood. I  didn't  tell  him  so;  I  just  made  him 
think  so.  I  was  a  great  deal  happier  with  you,  Frank, 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  175 

than  I  deserved  to  be.  I've  given  you  a  rotten,  selfish 
deal.  When  you  went  to  California  I  was  terribly 
lonely.  I  think  I  was  lonely  for  you,  and  I  was  hard- 
up  and  bored,  and  mamma  and  the  country  and  every- 
thing got  on  my  nerves.  And  because  everybody  has 
always  spoiled  me,  I — well,  I  met  Ogden  and  I  liked 
him,  and  he  was  thoughtful  and  soothing.  And — oh, 
he  was  just  floating  round  bored  and  lonely  and  a  long 
way  from  shore,  and  I  leaned  so  far  out  of  the  boat 
that  I  fell  in.  He  didn't  make  love  to  me.  He  is  a  gen- 
tleman and  an  honorable  gentleman,  whatever  you 
think.  One  day  I  told  him  that  I  loved  him  and  that 
I  couldn't  live  without  him.  And  I  thought  that  with 
his  love  to  back  me  up  I  could  be  strong  and  fine,  and 
do  right  by  you  .  .  .  and  I  can't  ...  I  can't!" 

"I  love  you  because  of  all  the  pure  gold  that  is  in 
you,"  said  Peter  Manners. 

"And  that  is  why  I  love  you,"  said  her  husband. 

The  knowledge  that  Peter  Manners,  whom  she  ad- 
mired immensely,  had  really  been  in  love  with  her  for 
many  years  had  a  softening  effect  on  Diana's  heart  and 
a  clarifying  effect  on  her  mind.  Her  vanity  too  must 
have  been  flattered,  for  it  is  certain  that  her  eyes  had 
become  brighter  and  less  tragic  and  her  coloring  more 
vivid.  She  had  never  looked  more  desirable. 

And  Francis  Manners  somehow  felt  that  the  dis- 
closure, although  the  fact  was  old  history  to  him,  had 
relieved  the  tension  under  which  he  was  laboring. 
Peter's  love  seemed  to  him  more  beautiful  and  less 
selfish  than  his  own.  Ogden  Fenn  was  also  affected. 
He  had  but  to  look  at  the  sweet-tempered,  lucid  and 
determined  face  of  the  man  who  had  loved  and  re- 


176  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

nounced  to  see  that  an  honest  renunciation  may  well 
be  counted  on  to  bring  contented  coordination  to  a 
spirit  in  chaos. 

"Have  you  brought  enough  dinner  for  four?"  asked 
Peter  Manners.  Diana  smiled  brightly  in  his  face. 

"How  good  you  are,"  she  said,  "and  how  kind !" 

"I'll  go  to  the  village,"  said  Fenn,  "and  pick  up 
what  I  can." 

"Good,"  said  Peter  Manners.  "We  others  might 
walk  to  the  top  of  the  hill — I  noticed  an  excellent  little 
hill  back  of  the  house,  Diana,  and  I  shall  show  you 
all  the  kingdom  of  the  Catskills.  It's  to  be  a  house- 
party  till  after  dinner.  Didn't  you  bring  any  food 
at  all?" 

"I  had  what  the  darkies  call  'a  little  lunch'  put  up  at 
the  Colony  Club,"  said  Diana.  Peter  Manners  burst 
out  laughing. 

"So  they  put  up  a  special  elopement  lunch?"  he 
asked.  "Come,  I  mean  to  climb  the  hill  and  see  the 
sunset." 

The  two  cousins  and  Diana  found  near  the  top  of  the 
little  hill  a  corner  in  which  the  descending  sun  made  a 
certain  warmth.  Here  they  seated  themselves,  their 
backs  against  a  smooth  rock,  Diana  in  the  middle. 

Into  the  next  half  hour,  Peter  Manners  put  all  that 
he  had  of  tact  and  delicacy,  all  the  fruits  of  his  univer- 
sal experience  as  a  popular  and  much-trusted  man.  He 
behaved,  in  short,  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  He 
was  indolent,  amused  and  amusing.  It  was  not  the 
first  time  that  the  three  had  made  an  excursion  to- 
gether. They  had  always  been  great  friends.  They 
had  always  enjoyed  being  together  and  talking  to- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  177 

gether.  In  their  talks,  often  of  a  teasing  and  pleas- 
antly malicious  nature,  half-phrases  had  the  value  of 
paragraphs.  Anecdotes  and  set  stories  were  tabu 
among  them ;  and  each  had  a  way  of  laughing  that  was 
contagious  to  the  other  two. 

But  the  effort  to  behave  as  if  nothing  had  happened 
was  a  very  great  effort,  which  opened  Peter  Manners's 
pores  and  caused  the  sweat  to  run  out  of  him.  And  at 
first  its  effect  upon  the  others  was  negligible.  But  after 
a  while,  for  habit  is  very  strong,  they  began  to  respond. 
And  he  observed,  glancing  sideways,  that  the  muscles 
of  his  cousin's  face  were  relaxing,  and  that  Diana's 
wistful  eyes  had  come  back  from  the  rim  of  the  world. 
Then  Francis  Manners  snapped  forth  a  cynicism  that 
conjured  up  before  them  all  the  oddities  which  made 
a  certain  friend  of  theirs  at  once  ridiculous  and  lov- 
able, and  Diana  shot  in  a  word  that  filled  their  risibles 
with  old  time  laughter.  And  after  that  there  was  never 
a  serious  word  spoken ;  until  suddenly — and  it  was  like 
a  change  of  scene  at  the  play — they  looked  and  saw 
that  the  western  sky  was  all  laced  with  gold  and 
crimson. 

It  was  mere  habit  that  caused  Diana  to  slip  a  hand 
beneath  her  husband's  arm.  The  touch  upon  him  was 
so  light — so  light  that  it  was  wonderful  that,  through 
all  his  sleeves,  thick  and  thin,  he  should  feel  it  at  all. 
But  he  could  not  have  been  surer  that  she  was  touch- 
ing him  if  her  hand  had  been  of  iron  and  red  hot. 
Would  she  withdraw  the  hand  swiftly  when  she  real- 
ized what  she  had  done  with  it?  He  kept  as  still  as  a 
man  should  who  attempts  to  tame  some  little  wild 
thing.  He  held  his  breath. 


1 78  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

Then  Diana  realized  what  she  had  done,  and  some- 
what obviously  she  slipped  her  other  hand  under  Peter 
Manners's  arm,  and  she  said : 

"Help  me  up,  you  two." 

They  helped  her  to  her  feet. 

"Fenn,"  said  Francis  Manners  very  gently,  "will  be 
wondering  what  has  become  of  us." 

It  had  not  occurred  to  Diana  that  Fenn  might  not 
return  to  his  house  at  all ;  that  the  dread  of  what  these 
two  tall  and  strong  cousins  might  intend  toward  him 
might  cause  him  to  throw  up  his  hands,  and  abandon 
a  course  which  in  his  heart  of  hearts  he  knew  to  be 
mistaken. 

But  Fenn,  after  some  vacillating,  had  resolved  to 
see  the  situation  through.  He  didn't  believe  that  the 
two  cousins  intended  him  any  bodily  harm,  but  he 
dreaded  being  alone  with  them,  and  his  resolution  had 
called  on  him  for  real  courage.  It  is  true  that  the  bach- 
elor cousin  had  been  casual  and  flippant,  but  in  the  hus- 
band's face  there  had  been  a  fatal  look ;  and  he  feared 
that  when  they  got  him  alone  they  would  put  such  pres- 
sure upon  him  as  might  squeeze  out  all  his  power  of 
resistance.  It  is  not  easy  to  stand  up  for  the  motives 
which  are  inciting  one  man  to  ruin  another  man's  life, 
and  to  compromise  the  whole  future  of  a  little  child. 
To  have  run  away  with  Diana,  even  at  her  insistence, 
put  him  in  a  bad  light.  "If  her  husband  kills  me,"  he 
thought,  "even  in  cold  blood,  the  jury  will  let  him  off, 
and  people  will  merely  say  that  I  got  what  I  deserved." 

Revolving  such  thoughts,  he  had  returned  to  his 
house  with  his  arms  filled  with  packages  of  provisions. 

"I  can  never  go  back  now,"  Diana  had  said ;  "every- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  179 

thing  is  all  over  forever  between  Frank  and  me.  If 
you  don't  take  me  away,  I'll  kill  myself." 

And  she  had  wept  then,  and  Fenn  had  hurried  off 
to  his  office  to  arrange  for  an  absence,  and  to  borrow 
a  motor.  But  he  knew  as  well  as  the  next  man  the 
value  to  her  of  a  woman's  good  name ;  and  the  knowl- 
edge that  he  was  forever  compromising  and  blackening 
the  good  name  of  the  woman  he  sincerely  loved  had 
kept  him  very  silent  during  the  long  drive  from  New 
York  to  Combers.  Several  times  he  had  attempted 
to  make  her  change  her  mind. 

At  the  very  time  when  he  had  been  kindling  and 
making  up  the  fire,  and  just  before  the  entry  upon  the 
scene  of  the  Manners  cousins,  he  had  said  to  her: 

"Diana,  darling,  it  isn't  too  late  even  now!  Are 
you  sure  that  you  want  to  give  up  everything  for  me  ? 
I  don't  think  you  know  what  you  are  doing." 

She  had  not  answered.  For  it  was  just  then  that 
some  intuition  had  made  her  look  over  her  shoulder 
and  she  had  seen  her  husband's  face. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

THANKS  largely  to  Peter  Manners's  efforts,  and  not 
a  little  to  Diana's  sense  of  poise,  dinner  was  not 
marked  by  awful  pauses.  Francis  Manners  told  them 
a  good  deal  of  California  and  the  Californians.  Fenn 
explained  how  he  had  come  to  build  or  rather  to  do 
over  a  house  in  such  an  inaccessible  place.  They  com- 
plimented him  upon  his  achievement.  The  house  was 
charming.  They  complimented  him  on  his  improvised 
dinner.  His  old  caretaker  was  certainly  a  treasure. 
Fenn  admitted  that  she  was,  if  you  kept  her  to  sim- 
ple things.  She  couldn't  cook  anything  very  fancy. 
There  was  an  upright  piano  in  the  hall,  and  after  din- 
ner Diana  played  for  them,  and  sang  cheerful  little 
songs  in  her  sweet  throaty  voice. 

It  was  no  longer  necessary  for  the  men  to  make  an 
effort ;  they  sat  relaxed  in  deep  chairs,  and  made  much 
smoke,  and  looked  upward,  or  at  Diana,  and  each 
thought  the  thoughts  which  the  playing  and  the  singing 
inspired. 

After  a  time  Diana's  hands  dropped  from  the  key- 
board to  her  sides. 

"I  am  going  to  bed,"  she  said  simply.  "Good- 
night!" 

The  three  men  rose  and  accompanied  her  to  the  foot 
of  the  stairs;  no  one  of  them  strove  for  any  precedence 
over  the  other.  She  gave  her  hand  first  to  Fenn  and 
last  to  her  husband.  He  raised  it  to  his  lips. 

180 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  181 

The  three  men  resumed  their  seats  and  smoked  in 
silence.  Half  an  hour  passed.  Then  Francis  Man- 
ners rose,  crossed  to  the  fireplace  and  threw  into  it  the 
stump  of  his  cigar. 

"I'm  going  up,  too,"  he  said.  "Good-night !"  Fenn 
and  Peter  Manners  watched  him  in  silence  until  he 
had  disappeared  from  view. 

"Will  you  drink  something?"  Fenn  asked. 

"Yes,  thank  you,"  said  Peter  Manners.     "Scotch." 

And  when  Fenn  had  visited  the  pantry  and  returned, 
with  the  whiskey,  glasses,  and  some  bottles  of  soda, 
Peter  Manners  made  himself  a  stiff  drink,  and  said: 
"They  will  have  a  good  deal  to  say  to  each  other,  and 
I  imagine  that  for  to-night  the  room  next  to  theirs — 
I  have  noticed  that  your  partitions  are  very  thin — had 
better  remain  vacant.  You  and  I  have  a  good  deal  to 
say,  too.  I  daresay  the  night  won't  seem  long." 

He  pulled  from  his  inside  pocket,  where  its  weight 
and  bulk  had  caused  him  considerable  annoyance,  his 
cousin's  automatic  pistol,  and  laid  it  convenient  to  his 
hand  on  the  broad,  flat  arm  of  his  chair. 

"Threatening  me  won't  do  any  good,"  said  Fenn 
quickly,  though  the  sudden  sight  of  the  cold,  blue, 
shapely  implement  had  almost  made  his  heart  stand 
still.  "You  will  have  to  give  me  some  better  reason 
than  death  for  giving  up  Diana,"  he  went  on.  And 
his  words  gave  him  courage. 

"At  the  moment,"  said  Peter  Manners,  "we  needn't 
talk  melodramatically.  The  pistol  was  pulling  my 
pocket  all  out  of  shape.  And  then  I  don't  yet  know 
you  well  enough  to  kill  you.  Everything  hinges  on 
what  is  best  for  Diana.  It  may  be  best  for  you  to  be 


1 82  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

killed  and  for  me  to  die  in  the  electric  chair  at  Sing- 
Sing.  I  don't  know.  But  so  much  depends  on  the 
kind  of  man  you  are.  Are  you  willing  to  give  me  an 
idea?" 

"Yes,"  said  Fenn.  "But  not  because  of  your  pistol. 
It  will  be  because  you  love  Diana  too.  I  will  answer 
any  question  that  you  care  to  ask  me." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Peter  Manners.  "You  have 
been  in  love  before?" 

"Several  times.     But  not  like  this." 

"Have  you  had  mistresses?" 

"No,  but  I've  sported  about  a  certain  amount." 

"Have  you  been  faithful  to  Diana  ever  since  you 
fell  in  love  with  her?" 

"Of  course." 

Peter  Manners  merely  nodded  and,  for  quite  a  long 
time,  he  asked  no  more  questions,  but  sat  smoking  in  a 
brooding  silence. 

"Fenn,"  he  said  at  last,  "none  of  us  loves  her  any 
more  than  I  do.  But  it's  easier  for  me  to  put  myself 
in  your  place  than  it  is  for  my  cousin  to.  You  see, 
she  has  never  belonged  to  us,  but  she  has  belonged  to 
him  for  ten  years.  And  I  suppose  you  realize  that  she 
will  always  belong  to  him.  You  may  be  the  most 
charming  fellow  in  the  world,  the  most  chivalrous,  the 
most  generous,  but  she  can  never  give  you  anything 
but  shadows.  The  substance  and  the  brightness  are 
locked  in  her  husband's  heart.  You  can  never  get 
them  out.  She  cannot  steal  them  from  him  and  give 
them  to  you.  And  she  will  tire  of  you,  just  as  she  has 
tired  of  him,  and  just  as  she  has  tired  of  another  man. 
She  has  one  chance  to  be  happy.  And  that  is  to  do 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  183 

right.  To  do  right  now.  Not  later.  The  chance 
will  never  come  to  her  again  after  she  is  married  to 
you.  It  will  not  come  then,  because  once  she  is  mar- 
ried to  you  she  can't  do  right.  There  will  be  no  right 
left  for  her  in  this  world  to  do." 

After  a  long  pause  Fenn  shrugged  his  shoulders  and 
asked : 

"What  can  I  do?" 

"Tell  her,"  said  Peter  Manners  slowly,  "that  you 
have  been  unfaithful  to  her,  that  there  are  reasons  why 
you  ought  not  to  marry." 

"But  I  have  told  her  the  opposite  and  that  I  was  free 
as  air.  I  have  told  her  that  there  wasn't  a  reason  in 
God's  world  why  I  shouldn't  marry.  I'm  afraid  I've 
boasted  about  it.  I've  made  her  think  I  am  rather  bet- 
ter than  most  men  of  my  age.  No.  I  can't.  I'm 
hanged  if  I  will." 

Peter  Manners  settled  more  deeply  into  his  chair, 
knitted  his  brow  in  thought  and  spoke  no  more  for  a 
long  time.  And  indeed,  during  the  rest  of  the  night, 
very  few  words  were  exchanged  between  them. 

Francis  Manners  sat  on  the  edge  of  Diana's  bed. 
The  moon  had  risen.  They  had  no  other  light. 

She  had  been  very  sure  that  he  would  wish  to  speak 
to  her  before  she  went  to  sleep,  so  she  had  hurried  with 
her  undressing  and  had  left  her  door  unlocked.  She 
had  not,  however,  omitted  her  nightly  prayers;  or,  at 
least,  she  had  not  failed  to  assume  for  a  few  minutes 
the  attitude  in  which  she  said  them.  Barefooted,  her 
hair  rippling  about  her  shoulders,  with  only  a  thin 
batiste  nightgown  to  shield  her  body  from  the  keen 
mountain  air,  she  had  knelt  for  some  minutes  by  the 


184  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

bed,  her  face  buried  in  her  hands.  What  she  said  to 
her  Maker,  if  anything,  is  unknown.  It  is  only  known 
that  when  she  heard  her  husband's  step  at  the  head  of 
the  stair,  she  rose  lightly  from  her  praying  and  with  a 
kind  of  huddling  shiver,  hurried  into  bed  and  drew 
the  coverings  to  her  chin. 

"Diana,  dear,"  said  her  husband,  "can  you  forgive 
me  all  my  faults  against  you,  as  I  forgive  you  all  your 
faults  against  me  ?" 

"I  have  nothing  to  forgive,  Frank,"  she  said  quietly. 
"Nothing.  And  you  have  lots." 

"Everything  is  forgiven,  then,  on  both  sides.  Di- 
ana, I  love  you  too  much  to  hold  you  against  your  will. 
My  first  thought  when  I  knew  that  you  had  run  away 
with  Fenn  was  how  to  save  you  from  scandal.  How 
to  save  you  from  yourself  has  been  my  thought  all  day, 
and  not  how  to  keep  you  for  myself.  Peter  loves  you, 
too.  It  is  a  good  thing  that  I  have  had  him  with  me, 
a  good  thing  for  us  all.  I  am  going  to  let  you  go  free, 
dear.  I  think  you've  proved  pretty  well  now  that  you 
really  want  to  be  free.  .  .  .  Do  you  mind  if  I  pull  down 
the  window?  It's  awfully  cold  in  here,  and  I've  lots 
to  say." 

Across  the  foot  of  the  bed,  neatly  folded,  was  a  thin 
silk  quilt.  She  advised  him  to  put  this  around  his 
shoulders.  He  did  so,  with  a  queer  little  laugh  at  the 
thought  of  the  grotesque  figure  he  must  cut. 

"First,  dear,"  he  said,  "  I  can't  let  you  go  into  court 
and  swear  that  I  have  deserted  you  or  that  I  have  been 
cruel  to  you.  That  would  be  perjury." 

"Then  I  don't  see  ... "  Diana  interrupted. 

"You  shall  have  real  grounds,"  her  husband  con- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  185 

tinued  placidly.  "I  shall  be  unfaithful  to  you.  I'll 
arrange  so  that  there  will  be  no  difficulty  about  getting 
testimony.  In  as  short  a  time  as  possible  you  will  be 
free." 

"Everybody  will  know  it's  a  fake,"  said  Diana. 

"It  will  not  be  a  fake,"  said  her  husband ;  "it  is  awful 
to  me  to  think  of  being  unfaithful  to  you,  after  twenty 
years  of  love  and  faithfulness.  But  they  do  say  that 
once  in  a  million  years  a  wild  goose  is  unfaithful  to 
his  first  love ;  so  I'll  be  the  one." 

"Frank,"  said  Diana,  "I  can't  bear  it!" 

"I  am  going  to  give  up  Tarn  to  you,  too,"  said  her 
husband,  "and  when  it's  all  over,  and  you  are  free, 
and  I've  settled  a  little  to  all  the  changes  and  all  the 
heartaches  and  new  points  of  view,  why  I'll  work  till 
I  break  to  make  you  and  yours  just  as  affluent  and 
comfortable  as  I  can."  She  lay  staring  past  him,  into 
the  shadows. 

"So  that's  all  settled,"  he  said,  with  attempted 
cheerfulness.  She  did  not  speak. 

"Don't  think  that  I  don't  see  your  point  of  view, 
darling,"  he  said;  "to  know  that  you  are  to  start  life 
all  over  again,  loved  and  loving,  must  be  very  wonder- 
ful and  beautiful.  I  know  how  I  felt  when  we  started. 
I'd  loved  you  ever  since  you  were  a  little  girl.  I'd 
always  been  great  friends  with  your  father,  and  I  came 
to  the  house  a  lot  on  his  account.  One  day  I  stopped 
coming  on  his  account  and  kept  coming  on  yours. 
You  ran  an  ugly  splinter  into  your  thumb,  and  you 
came  to  me  with  the  thumb  held  straight  out,  and  your 
big  blue  eyes  so  hurt  and  brave,  and  a  tear  stopped  half- 
way down  each  cheek.  And  while  I  was  getting  the 


1 86  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

splinter  out  you  trembled,  but  you  didn't  cry.  And 
I  loved  you,  and  I  knew  that  when  you  grew  up  I  was 
going  to  marry  you  if  only  I  could  get  you  to  love  me. 
Somehow  I  knew  that  I  could.  But  it  was  hard  sled- 
ding all  those  years  watching  you  grow  up,  waiting  for 
you  to  be  old  enough  to  be  made  love  to.  I  couldn't 
even  play  with  you  as  often  as  I  wanted  to  for  fear 
your  father  and  mother  wouldn't  like  it.  I've  been 
terribly  jealous  of  little  boys  your  own  age  who  came 
to  see  you,  and  brought  you  boxes  of  candy.  And  you 
had  awful  mashes  on  half-a-dozen  of  them.  One  day, 
when  you  were  about  fifteen,  you  had  a  new  pony  and 
runabout  given  you  and  you  took  me  for  a  drive.  Mud 
splashed  on  your  cheek  and  I  wiped  it  off  with  my 
handkerchief.  That  handkerchief  is  in  my  safety- 
deposit  box  with  a  little  letter  for  Tarn  to  read  when 
she  grows  up  and  I  am  dead  and  gone.  One  day,  for 
you  were  still  half  a  boy,  you  came  sliding  out  of  an 
apple-tree.  Your  dear  face  was  bright  red,  and  your 
hair  was  mussed  and  full  of  broken  twigs.  You'd 
torn  a  couple  of  buttons  off  your  shirtwaist  and  I  could 
just  see  your  breast,  firm  and  young  and  brown — and 
— and  gentle.  I  had  one  of  those  hunting-crop  safety- 
pin  things  in  my  necktie  and  I  pinned  you  up  with  it. 
Those  were  the  moments  in  my  life  when  I  felt  the 
most  tender  and  compassionate  and  protecting.  And 
when  you  came  out  and  were  old  enough  to  be  made 
love  to,  I  kept  away;  because  it  seemed  only  fair  to 
give  you  a  chance  to  look  all  the  men  over  before  I 
tried  to  make  you  settle  to  me.  And  because  you  loved 
to  flirt  and  be  made  love  to,  I  had  some  hard  times. 
When  you'd  been  out  nearly  a  year  I  began  to  make 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  187 

love  to  you;  but  there  was  nothing  novel  or  exciting 
about  me.  You  were  so  used  to  me.  I'd  always  been 
around.  Sometimes  it  seemed  as  if  I  didn't  stand  a 
ghost  of  a  show.  And  maybe  I'd  had  you  on  a  pedes- 
tal so  long  and  worshiped  you  so  that  you  seemed 
too  much  of  a  bright  spirit  to  me,  and  not  enough  of 
a  flesh-and-blood  girl  with  desires  and  passions. 
Sometimes  my  pride  told  me  to  end  it;  to  go  away; 
and  to  forget.  To  forget  you!  Think  of  that !  But 
one  night  you  were  lying  on  a  long  veranda  chair, 
propped  up  against  a  pile  of  striped  cushions.  There 
was  a  full  moon,  and  your  blue  eyes  were  as  black  as 
ink.  It  was  August,  and  you  had  low  neck  and  short 
sleeves,  and  no  scarf,  and  a  man  never  looked  on  any- 
thing so  desirable  since  the  first  moon  rose  and  love 
was  born  in  the  world.  ...  I  got  out  of  my  chair  and 
knelt  and  laid  my  cheek  against  yours,  and  you  never 
moved.  The  moon  was  in  your  heart  and  hair,  too. 
And  then  I  began  to  kiss  you,  and  I  kissed  all  of  you 
that  there  was  to  be  kissed,  until  our  hearts  were  beat- 
ing like  drums  in  a  battle,  and  almost  it  seemed  as  if 
you  loved  me  as  much  as  I  loved  you.  ..." 

His  voice  thrilled  with  those  memories.  And  she 
lay  still  as  death,  her  eyes,  black  as  pools  of  ink  staring 
past  him  into  the  shadows.  And  at  that  moment 
there  existed  for  her  nothing  but  the  vibrations  of 
that  impassioned  and  impassioning  voice.  He  leaned 
toward  her,  and  she  turned  her  face  toward  him,  and 
looked  into  his  eyes.  And  at  that  moment  she  was  not 
a  high-born  and  fastidious  gentlewoman,  involved  in 
the  complexities  of  love  entanglements;  she  was  sex, 
thrilling  to  be  kissed  and  conquered. 


1 88  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

He  caught  her  firm  shoulders  in  his  strong  hands 
and  leaned  closer. 

And  then  it  was  as  if  something  cracked  in  his  brain ; 
he  seemed  to  see,  instead  of  Diana's  red  and  parted 
lips,  that  stick  of  red  grease  whose  use  she  had  dis- 
continued for  the  benefit  of  other  lips  than  his.  A 
revulsion  of  intention  shook  him  from  head  to  foot, 
and  passion  died  in  him,  and  his  hands  withdrew  from 
her  shoulders.  He  leaned  away  from  her.  He  turned 
his  face  away  from  her.  He  replaced  the  quilted  silk 
thing  that  had  fallen  from  his  shoulders.  He  drew 
it  tightly  across  his  breast.  Bitterness,  despair,  lone- 
liness possessed  him.  He  was  alone,  flying  a  mile 
high  in  the  bitter  air,  destined  to  sorrow  for  all  the 
remaining  years  of  his  life  for  the  mate  he  had  loved 
and  lost. 

"Good-night,  my  darling,"  said  the  Wild  Goose. 
"God  bless  and  keep  you  always  and  make  you  happy." 

He  kissed  her  as  he  might  have  kissed  a  child.  She 
did  not  turn  her  lips  away,  for  they  were  still  eager  for 
kisses.  And  when  he  kissed  her  she  kissed  him  back. 
But  the  quality  of  his  kiss  was  like  cold  water  thrown 
upon  her  passion. 

"Good-night,  dear,  dear  Frank,"  she  said  unstead- 
ily, "and  God  bless  and  keep  you." 

When  he  had  gone  she  turned  her  face  to  the  wall 
and  cried  herself  to  sleep. 

Francis  Manners  paced  the  hall  outside  her  door. 
All  the  rest  of  the  night  he  paced  slowly  up  and  down, 
his  quiet  footfalls  lost  in  the  thick  carpet,  his  head 
erect,  like  a  knight  on  guard  before  a  shrine. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  189 

Neither  at  breakfast  nor  after  breakfast  was  there 
any  further  discussion  of  the  situation.  Diana  had 
waked  with  all  her  love  and  longing  for  Fenn  renewed. 
She  was  going  to  accept  the  terms  of  divorce  that  her 
husband  had  offered.  But  with  mental  reservations 
she  softened  the  clauses.  They  must  always  be 
friendly;  Frank  should  see  Tarn  whenever  he  wished. 
She  herself  could  accept  no  alimony ;  just  a  small  allow- 
ance to  cover  Tarn's  expenses.  Already  she  felt  like 
a  free  woman.  She  made  no  objection  to  driving  her 
husband  back  to  town.  Now  that  Fenn  was  an  assured 
possession  it  was  no  longer  a  crying  necessity  to  be 
with  him  every  moment  of  the  time. 

Manners's  face  bore  few  traces  of  the  night's  vigil 
and  suffering.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  renuncia- 
tion. He  was  quiet  and  reserved,  but  easy  and 
cheerful.  Fenn,  who  had  learned  from  Diana  of  the 
impending  divorce,  felt  an  immense  gratitude  toward 
her  husband,  gratitude  and  admiration.  Only  a  real 
thoroughbred,  he  thought,  could  be  so  self-sacrificing 
and  generous. 

Upon  Peter  Manners  the  night  seemed  to  have 
weighed  most  heavily.  Perhaps  it  was  because  he 
had  smoked  and  drunk  too  much,  perhaps  it  was  be- 
cause of  the  desperate  plan  which  had  taken  possession 
of  him.  As  a  last  resource  he  would  execute  that  plan, 
but  as  a  drowning  man  wishes  for  a  helping  hand  so  he 
wished  that  some  other  way  could  be  found. 

Diana  herself  had  told  him  of  the  terms  upon  which 
she  was  to  have  her  divorce. 

"And  you  are  going  to  accept,  Diana?" 


THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"Sooner  or  later  we'd  run  away  again,  Peter,"  she 
said ;  "it's  got  to  be." 

"Diana,"  he  said,  "you  have  one  chance  of  happi- 
ness, and  only  one.  Do  right !"  She  made  no  answer. 

"If  you  would  do  right,"  he  said,  "I'd  gladly  die." 

"Peter,  dear,"  she  entreated,  "it's  best  the  way  it 
is.  Please  don't  scold  me." 

They  had  no  more  words  on  the  subject,  and  soon 
after  she  and  her  husband  had  departed  in  the  dark- 
red  car,  Peter  Manners  cranked  his  powerful  runabout 
and  followed  with  Ogden  Fenn  in  the  seat  beside 
him. 

They  came  in  time,  driving  slowly,  to  a  long  and 
straight  descent  of  dirt  road.  It  was  this  descent 
which  Peter  Manners  had  remembered  in  the  night, 
and  which  had  offered  him  one  last  desperate  solution 
of  the  whole  problem. 

"Fenn,"  he  said,  "if  I  shoot  you,  you  become  a 
martyr.  Diana  would  make  a  saint  of  you  in  her 
memory,  and  she  could  never  make  up  things  with 
her  husband;  because  it  would  be  almost  as  if  he  him- 
self had  done  the  shooting.  But  if  we  die  together  like 
a  couple  of  bums  who  have  stopped  at  too  many 
roadhouses  she  will  soon  forget  you,  and  the  chances 
are  that  she  will  be  shocked  into  behaving  herself." 
The  car  was  moving  with  greatly  accelerated  speed. 

"I  am  sorry,"  said  Peter  Manners.  "You  seem  to 
be  a  goodish  sort  of  a  little  man  in  your  way,  but 
you've  raised  hell  with  the  two  people  I  love  most." 

Fenn  glanced  at  the  grim  and  determined  profile 
of  the  man  who  drove.  His  heart  turned  cold.  The 
car  was  going  at  a  terrible  rate. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  191 

"Say,"  he  said,  "there's  a  hairpin  turn  at  the  bottom 
of  this  hill!" 

"And  a  high  cliff.     I  remember." 

Ogden  Fenn  struck  the  rug  from  about  his  legs  and 
half  rose  to  his  feet.  The  car  gave  a  sudden  leap,  and 
he  sat  down  hard.  Peter  Manners  loosed  one  hand 
from  the  steering-wheel  and  seized  the  back  of  Fenn's 
neck  in  a  vise-like  grip.  The  bottom  of  the  hill  with 
the  hairpin  turn  and  the  fragile  railing  that  alone 
guarded  it  from  the  brink  of  the  cliff  were  rushing 
toward  them. 

"I  do  this,"  cried  Peter  Manners  suddenly,  "so  that 
a  little  child  may  grow  up  with  a  father  and  a  mother 
— in  a  home.  And  may  God  have  mercy  on  my  soul !" 

"Oh,  for  God's  sake !"  screamed  Fenn. 

His  hat  blew  off,  and  he  clawed  at  his  head  in  a  fran- 
tic and  ridiculous  effort  to  save  it. 

We  learn  from  soldiers  and  sailors,  and  we  might 
better  perhaps  learn  from  those  crazed  savages  who 
run  amuck,  or  "from  the  rat  who  turns  at  last  and  dies 
valiantly  in  his  corner,  that  if  only  the  occasion  be 
sufficiently  desperate  to  call  it  forth,  courage  is  an  ar- 
ticle of  no  great  rarity.  It  was  not  because  of  fear 
that  Ogden  Fenn  had  screamed  "Oh,  for  God's 
sake !"  and  when  he  clawed  frantically  and  ridiculously 
at  his  hat  he  was  neither  ridiculous  nor  frantic.  He 
simply  looked  so.  For  if  during  the  course  of  the 
next  few  seconds  he  was  to  lose  his  life,  it  could  not 
have  been  a  matter  of  moment  to  him,  or  even  of  un- 
easiness, what  in  the  meantime  became  of  his  hat. 

Seeing  the  imminence  of  death,  and  feeling  that  the 
impetus  of  the  heavy  car  must  carry  it  inevitably 


192  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

through  the  flimsy  railing  and  over  the  cliff,  he  felt 
rather  than  thought  that  no  power  of  brakes  could  in 
so  short  a  distance  stop  the  terrible  rush  and  save  him 
from  destruction.  He  accepted  the  fact  of  death,  the 
inevitability,  the  impossibility  of  escape,  and  he  rose 
to  it  with  a  kind  of  wild  exultation;  with  no  thought 
of  saving  himself  and  with  no  thought  except  to  make 
his  murderer's  suicide  seem  vain,  he  shouted:  "She'll 
know!" 

Peter  Manners  caught  the  words,  and  by  the  grace 
of  one  of  those  moments  when  the  mind  is  quicker 
than  electricity,  understood  the  wild  folly  of  his  at- 
tempt, and  with  all  the  power  and  suddenness  of  which 
he  was  capable  put  on  the  brakes.  Fenn  was  smashed 
against  the  windshield  and  Manners  was  hurt  against 
the  steering  wheel.  There  was  a  sound  of  rending  and 
grinding,  then  the  headlights  and  the  radiator  passed 
with  a  slow  crashing  sound  through  the  railing  that 
guarded  the  road  from  the  cliff,  arid  the  car  stopped. 
A  plumb-line  grazing  the  extreme  advance  of  the  front 
wheels  would  have  hung  clear  of  the  cliff. 

"Get  out !"  said  Manners.  Fenn  got  out  awkwardly, 
for  he  was  badly  shaken  and  Manners  followed  suit. 
With  rocks  Manners  wedged  the  rear  wheels  so  that 
they  could  not  turn  forward  another  inch.  Then, 
when  he  had  rested,  and  recovered  control  of  his 
nerves,  he  climbed  painfully  into  his  seat,  and  backed 
his  machine  out  of  danger.  "Will  you  ride  the  rest 
of  the  way  with  me?"  he  asked,  "or  would  you  rather 
walk?" 

"I'll  just  get  my  hat,"  said  Fenn,  "if  you  don't 
mind  waiting." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  193 

Peter  Manners  waited,  his  arms,  which  trembled 
slightly,  folded  across  the  steering-wheel.  He  could 
not  have  said  whether  he  had  waited  a  minute  or  an 
hour,  when  Fenn,  brushing  the  dust  from  his  hat, 
rejoined  him.  Manners  did  not  at  once  start  the  car. 
"You  are  right,"  he  said,  "of  course  she'd  know.  It's 
exactly  the  same  whether  I  shoot  you  or  drive  you  over 
a  cliff."  He  let  in  the  clutch  and  the  car  moved  slowly 
forward,  and  having  achieved  the  hairpin  turn  pro- 
ceeded at  once  with  greatly  accelerated  speed.  From 
time  to  time  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  Fenn  stole  a 
look  at  Manners.  It  would  be  easy,  he  thought,  to 
follow  such  a  man  into  battle.  He  wondered  why 
Diana  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  other  Manners  in- 
stead of  this  one.  "She  would  have  been  far  happier," 
he  thought ;  "she  would  never  have  any  use  for  me." 

"I  wish,"  said  Manners  suddenly,  "that  I  could  see 
inside  your  brain.  I  wonder  just  what  it  feels  like 
to  have  taken  a  wife  away  from  a  husband,  and  to  have 
spoiled  a  little  child's  best  chances."  He  did  not  speak 
with  contempt,  but  speculatively. 

"With  some  men,"  said  Fenn,  choosing  his  words 
carefully,  "I  suppose  that  the  thing  happens  without 
any  intention,  and  such  men  probably  cannot  help  feel- 
ing very  proud  at  having  won  the  woman's  love,  and 
very  sorry  that  they  cannot  have  it  without  hurting 
others.  Such  a  man  would  realize  his  responsibilities 
toward  the  woman  more  than  if  she  were  a  girl.  He 
would  perhaps  go  more  intelligently  and  systemati- 
cally about  the  business  of  making  their  marriage  a 
success." 

"He  would  need  to,"  said  Peter  Manners,  "for  I 


194  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

think  that  when  the  husband  still  loves  his  wife,  and 
has  done  her  no  wrong,  sueh  'a  marriage  can  never  be 
a  success.  Diana  is  not  entirely  abandoned  to  her 
selfish  impulses.  It  is  only  that  for  the  time  being 
these  have  the  upper  hand.  How  will  she  feel  when  in 
their  turn  the  instincts  to  be  just  and  self-sacrificing 
have  the  upper  hand,  and  remorse  sets  in?  And  I 
feel  sure,  for  I  know  her  very  well,  that  this  will  hap- 
pen. And  I  think  that  it  will  happen  the  moment  it 
is  no  longer  possible  for  her  to  ask  her  husband  to 
forgive  her  and  to  take  her  back.  It  will  happen  very 
likely  in  the  moment  when  you  and  she  turn  your  backs 
on  the  altar  as  man  and  wife." 

"If,"  said  Fenn,  after  a  pause,  "we  are  ever  to  be 
married,  do  you  think  it  is  quite  fair  to  wish  us  so 
much  unhappiness  and  disappointment?  I  should  think 
her  friends,  no  matter  how  much  they  hated  me,  would 
want  our  marriage  to  be  happy  and  successful." 

"Those  who  were  really  her  friends,"  said  Manners, 
"would  of  course  try  to  make  it  so." 


CHAPTER   XV 

FRANCIS  MANNERS  felt  that  he  had  played  his  last 
card  and  shot  his  last  bolt,  and  that  Diana  definitely 
wished  to  be  rid  of  him.  He  was  like  a  man  who,  hav- 
ing exhausted  himself  with  frenzied  effort  to  save 
his  house  from  burning  to  the  ground,  perceives  that 
the  building  is  doomed  beyond  peradventure,  resigns 
himself  to  its  loss,  and  upon  the  instant  turns  Stoic. 
He  had  a  certain  sense  of  release.  He  had  fought 
for  the  right.  He  had  been  beaten.  He  was  sorry 
that  wrong  had  prevailed,  but  he  was  glad  that  the 
war  was  over,  and  that  the  demobilization  would  soon 
be  effected.  He  had  taken  arms  against  a  sea  of 
troubles;  since  he  could  not  end  them,  let  them  end 
him. 

It  was  not  without  a  cynical  amusement  that  he 
remembered  the  business  he  had  undertaken.  He  had 
promised  Diana  to  furnish  her  with  the  only  grounds 
upon  which  in  the  State  of  New  York  a  woman  may 
divorce  her  husband.  And  for  some  days  following 
her  arrested  elopement  he  occupied  himself  with  this 
quixotic  and  depraved  project.  Sometimes  he  talked 
it  over  with  Diana.  He  hoped  perhaps  that  the  ghast- 
liness  of  the  business,  the  cold-blooded  wickedness  of 
it,  might  even  at  the  eleventh  hour  turn  her  from  her 
intentions.  But  if  he  entertained  such  a  hope  he  did 
not  express  it. 

Now  that  she  was  sure  of  having  her  own  way  Diana 

195 


196  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

had  more  time  for  Tam  and  for  her  household  duties. 
Fenn  must  keep.  It  was  obvious  that  until  some 
months  after  the  divorce  her  name  and  his  must  be  as 
little  connected  as  possible.  In  consequence,  Francis 
Manners  saw  a  great  deal  of  his  own  wife. 

One  day,  when  his  plans  for  her  benefit  were  more 
or  less  in  shape,  he  laid  them  before  her.  "Diana,"  he 
said,  "you  can't  have  the  great  climax  in  the  third 
act  until  you  have  had  the  first  act  and  the  second  act. 
It  won't  do  for  me  and  the  beautiful  blonde  to  be 
trapped  out  of  a  clear  sky.  From  now  on  I  am  going 
to  neglect  you  and  spend  most  of  my  time  in  town. 
I  am  going  to  neglect  you  so  that  people  will  notice  it. 
I'll  live  at  the  apartment  and  I'll  let  people  believe 
that  after  ten  years'  hard  work  and  domestic  worries 
I've  declared  a  holiday.  I'll  preach  the  equality  of 
the  sexes.  I'll  maintain  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  live 
his  own  life  and  to  fulfil  his  own  destiny." 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  be  so  sarcastic  and  bitter," 
said  Diana. 

"I  am  not,"  he  said.  "I  have  managed  to  hide  my 
bitter  feelings  and  I  take  a  certain  mechanical  amuse- 
ment in  those  which  remain  in  plain  sight.  That's  all. 
I  am  trying  to  be  practical.  The  most  important 
thing  is  to  see  that  your  reputation  comes  through  the 
divorce-court  immaculate.  To  achieve  that  you  must 
be  the  one  who  stays  at  home  and  I  must  be  the  one 
who  goes  traipsing.  In  short,  I  must  seem  to  give  you 
and  Tam  the  same  sort  of  deal  that  you  have  really 
given  Tam  and  me.  The  thing  can't  be  done  off-hand. 
I've  got  to  play  around  until  I  find  a  woman  whom  I 
might  reasonably  be  conceived  to  think  attractive, 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  197 

and  who  wouldn't  in  the  least  mind  being  mixed  up 
in  a  scandal." 

"But  if  the  whole  thing  is  a  fake?"  objected  Diana. 

"It  isn't  a  fake.  Faking  is  too  dangerous.  If  we 
plot  against  the  law  and  are  found  out  you  will  never 
get  your  divorce  in  this  State,  and  I  might  conceivably 
go  to  jail.  I'm  not  going  to  cheat,  Diana." 

She  made  no  remarks. 

"Does  the  pity  of  it  strike  you?  That  the  only 
pleasure  I  can  give  you  is  to  be  unfaithful  to  you?" 

He  clenched  his  hands  till  the  knuckles  were  white, 
for  the  pity  of  it  and  the  bitterness  were  very  plain 
to  him.  Then  he  continued  in  an  even,  matter-of- 
fact  voice: 

"I'll  let  you  know,  of  course,  when  it's  time  for  you 
to  hire  a  detective.  And  I  shall  give  you  some  valu- 
able hints  as  to  my  new  habits." 

"People  fake  these  things  all  the  time,"  said  Diana. 
She  would  not  have  confessed  it,  but  the  thought  that 
Manners  intended  to  be  technically  unfaithful  to  her 
had  the  power  to  hurt.  Manners  shook  his  head. 

"You  had  no  hand  in  making  the  law,"  he  said ;  "no 
woman  did;  so  it's  easy  to  understand  why  women 
don't  see  the  beauty  of  it.  I  lay  claim  to  no  special 
civic  virtue.  I'd  rather  flout  the  law  than  not,  but  it 
isn't  safe.  It's  safer  to  break  a  commandment." 

Diana  deeply  resented  the  idea  that  Manners  was 
going  to  be  unfaithful  to  her ;  but  she  could  not  have 
analyzed  her  justification.  She  would  have  sworn  that 
she  hadn't  a  tinge  of  jealousy;  but  it  is  probable  that 
she  had.  She  was  more  married  than  she  knew.  She 
had  a  higher  conception  of  marriage  as  an  institution 


198  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

than  she  would  have  confessed.  Not  even  Fenn  knew 
that  the  break  with  Manners  was  almost  as  tragic  to 
her  as  it  was  to  him.  It  is  probable  that  intellectually 
she  could  not  have  offered  one  single  solitary  excuse 
for  what  she  had  done.  And  it  is  probable  that  in  her 
heart  her  love  for  Fenn  was  neither  an  excuse  nor  a 
justification.  She  may  be  likened  to  an  average  decent- 
minded  human  being  who  at  last,  under  stress  of  tor- 
ture, consents  to  commit  crime.  Some  characters,  as 
the  history  of  religion  proves,  are  stronger  than  the 
strongest  pain;  but  the  average  church  pillar  would 
abjure  his  God  at  the  second  turn  of  the  thumbscrew. 
Diana's  character  was  in  the  making.  It  had  its 
strength;  but  as  a  whole  it  was  not  yet  so  strong  as 
love.  It  was  as  if  love  said  to  her:  "Don't  try  to  jus- 
tify yourself,  my  dear,  trust  me.  I  will  give  you  not 
only  the  happiness  to  which  every  woman  has  a  right ; 
but  I  will  give  you  justification  also.  When  all  those 
who  love  you  see  how  happy  your  choice  has  made 
you,  they  will  be  happy  too." 

Immediately  after  the  return  from  Combers,  Man- 
ners had  said  to  Mrs.  Langham:  "We  were  in  plenty 
of  time.  But  there  is  no  use  butting  into  a  stone  wall. 
I  have  surrendered.  I  have  thrown  up  my  hands.  I 
have  promised  to  furnish  grounds." 

"In  New  York  State?" 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Langham."  His  words  were  a  cry  of 
bitterness. 

Aside  from  Mrs.  Langham  he  did  not  even  tell  Mary 
Hastings  what  he  proposed  to  do.  He  would  have 
given  everything  he  possessed  if  he  had  not  made  that 
promise  to  Diana.  And  he  even  felt  a  certain  resent- 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  199 

ment  toward  his  Cousin  Peter  for  suggesting  that  he 
make  it.  For  once  Peter,  from  the  highest  motives, 
had  given  him  bad  advice.  But  though  his  soul  writhed 
in  revolt  he  meant  to  keep  his  promise ;  and  he  was  too 
proud  to  ask  Diana  to  release  him  from  it.  Sometimes 
there  was  a  look  in  her  face  which  made  him  hope 
that  she  would  release  him  of  her  own  accord. 

That  he  might  after  a  time  find  real  diversion  and 
inspiration  to  better  work  in  sowing  the  wild  oats  that 
he  had  never  sown  sometimes  occurred  to  him.  But 
such  thoughts  had  no  power  to  convince. 

It  was  hard  for  him  during  these  days  to  be  natural 
with  Tarn.  He  had  committed  himself  to  doing  the 
child  a  great  wrong;  and  it  was  not  easy  for  him  to 
look  into  the  adoring  and  steadfast  eyes.  She  seemed 
by  some  divine  intuition  of  childhood  to  realize  that 
his  mood  could  have  no  gaiety  in  it,  and  she  reflected 
his  mood.  He  wanted  her  to  be  with  him,  close  to 
him ;  but  he  wanted  them  both  to  be  quiet.  She  seemed 
to  understand  that.  The  sorrow  that  he  tried  so  hard 
to  keep  from  her  had  overflowed  in  spite  of  him.  He 
was  a  different  Daddy,  and  yet  the  same.  She  loved 
him  all  the  more.  One  day  she  said  to  her  mother : 

"You  used  to  like  the  city  better  than  the  country, 
and  now  it's  Daddy  that  does." 

Francis  Manners  had  not  yet  begun  to  sow  his  wild 
oats,  but  he  was  plowing  the  field.  The  conventional 
times  found  him  at  the  bar  of  his  club  with  one  foot 
on  the  rail.  He  was  always  ready  to  accept  stag  invi- 
tations, theater  parties  and  late  suppers.  He  began  to 
know  the  more  notable  ladies  of  the  half -world  by 
sight  and  reputation.  He  frequented  the  theaters  and 


200  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

the  roof-gardens.  He  gave  a  poker  party  at  the  apart- 
ment. The  players  stayed  to  breakfast.  People  began 
to  talk  about  him.  They  said  that  sooner  or  later  all 
artists  yielded  to  temperament,  and  that  he  was  treat- 
ing Diana  shamefully. 

"By  gad,"  said  one  well-known  rounder,  "if  I'd  had 
a  dear  HI'  wife  like  that  I  wouldn't  be  the  man  I 
am." 

Francis  Manners's  whole  life  gradually  became  a  lie. 
People  speak  lightly  of  men  lying  to  save  a  woman. 
But  it  is  one  thing  to  tell  a  good,  helpful  lie  with  a 
straight  face  now  and  then;  and  it  is  quite  another 
to  fabricate  a  really  colossal  and  telling  lie  out  of 
everything  that  a  man  believes  in  and  holds  dear.  In 
order  to  shield  his  wife's  good  name  beyond  peradven- 
ture,  Manners  had  to  neglect  her  when  he  wanted  to  be 
writh  her ;  to  affect  a  love  for  the  city  which  he  did  not 
feel ;  to  keep  late  hours  when  he  preferred  early  ones, 
and  in  appearance  at  least  to  go  back  on  all  his  most 
cherished  principles.  And  he  had  to  seem  gay  and 
amused  when  he  was  eating  his  heart  out. 

Of  course  it  wasn't  all  make-believe.  He  actually 
enjoyed  the  food  which  he  appeared  to  enjoy.  He 
really  liked  brut  champagnes;  and  when  people  said 
things  that  seemed  to  him  really  funny  his  troubles 
were  drowned  in  the  laughter  that  came  so  easily  to 
him.  Nobody  whom  he  associated  with  saw  in  him  a 
tragic  figure.  He  was  a  well-dressed,  big-hearted, 
open-handed  gentleman  about  town  with  a  perfect 
right  to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and  a 
perfect  eye  for  good  looks. 

Drinking  too  much,  smoking  too  much,  and  sitting 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  201 

up  too  late  agreed  with  him  for  a  while.  He  gained 
weight  and  went  through  a  kind  of  rejuvenescence.  If 
he  had  not  been  in  love  with  Diana  he  might  in  time 
become  the  wholly  selfish  and  self-centered  person  that 
he  appeared  to  be.  Even  at  forty  it  is  not  difficult  to 
form  new  habits  when  the  heartstrings  have  been 
loosed.  And  he  was  very  attractive  to  women,  and 
on  general  principles  they  were  attractive  to  him.  He 
might  in  time  overcome  his  shyness  and  his  fastidious- 
ness. "After  all,"  he  would  encourage  himself,  "I'm 
a  male." 

One  morning  before  he  was  up  his  brother-in-law, 
Kingland  Langham,  telephoned  and  made  an  appoint- 
ment to  see  him  later  in  the  day.  The  matter,  King- 
land  said,  was  urgent. 

"Shall  I  come  down-town?"  Manners  had  asked. 

"I  think  I'd  better  come  to  your  flat,"  Kingland  had 
answered.  "It's  a  family  matter ;  we  can  be  more  pri- 
vate there." 

"Shall  we  say  five  o'clock?" 

"Five  it  is." 

"Nothing  serious?" 

"I  wouldn't  quite  say  that;  it  remains  to  be  seen." 

Kingland  Langham  was  punctual  to  the  moment. 
He  was  that  kind  of  a  man. 

"Look  here,  Frank,"  said  Kingland,  bending  his 
heavy  brows  slightly,  and  looking  suddenly  upward 
from  the  toes  of  his  spatted  shoes  to  his  brother-in- 
law's  face,  "what's  all  this  I  hear  about  you  and 
Diana?" 

"What  have  you  heard,  King?" 


202  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"I  hear  that  you  are  playing  round  with  Moffit  and 
Carlton  and  Digbee  and  all  that  crowd  and  all  the  gay 
ladies  in  town.  I  don't  say  I  believe  all  that  I  hear. 
I've  come  to  you  to  hear  what  I've  heard  denied.  I've 
known  you  all  my  life ;  and  what  I've  heard  about  you 
is  so  utterly  unlike  you  that  I'll  only  believe  it  from 
your  own  lips." 

"I  must  try  not  to  be  so  conspicuous,"  said  Manners. 

"Then  it's  true?" 

"King,  men  change  as  they  get  older.  I've  been 
pretty  domestic  for  a  good  many  years.  I  was  getting 
stale.  I  need  change.  I've  been  doing  bad  work." 

"That's  not  a  good  reason  for  making  Diana  un- 
happy. You're  not  tired  of  her,  are  you?" 

Manners  did  not  answer  this  question.  He  simply 
said:  "Diana's  not  as  unhappy  as  you  think  she  is." 

"I'll  ask  her.  I  don't  believe  in  beating  about  the 
bush.  I'll  go  straight  to  her." 

"You'll  find  that  she  isn't  worrying  her  head  off 
about  me,"  said  Manners. 

He  couldn't  help  laughing  when  his  brother-in-law 
had  gone.  "The  first  thing  I  know,"  he  thought, 
"Diana  will  be  running  in  to  tell  me  I'm  behaving 
badly  and  making  her  unhappy.  Good  Lord!" 

He  got  her  on  the  telephone  and  warned  her  of  the 
visit  that  she  was  to  receive  from  her  brother  King- 
land.  Diana  said  that  Kingland  was  a  meddling  fool, 
but  a  dear.  This  conversation  came  to  an  awkward 
pause.  Then  Diana  said : 

"How  are  you  getting  on?" 

"Are  you  impatient?" 

"No,  Frank,  only " 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  203 

"Only  what?" 

"Isn't  there  some  other  way?" 

"There  is  no  other  quick  way." 

His  heart  was  beating  fast.  Almost  he  believed  that 
she  was  going  to  say  that  she  would  not  see  him  de- 
graded, and  that  she  would  take  the  long  way.  Her 
next  words  were:  "Are  you  all  right?" 

He  sighed.  She  was  not  going  to  choose  the  long 
way. 

"Frank,"  she  said,  "people  are  beginning  to  treat  me 
as  if  I  were  a  martyr.  It  makes  me  sick.  It's  so  unjust 
to  you.  I'm  the  one  who  has  done  wrong.  Don't  you 
suppose  I  know  that  ?" 

Again  his  heart  began  to  beat,  and  again  she  dashed 
his  hopes. 

"I'm  so  sorry,"  she  said,  "but  I  just  can't  help  my- 
self. It's  life  or  death  to  me." 

"That's  all  right,  Diana."  He  managed  to  speak  in 
a  natural  voice  though  he  was  half -crazed  with  sudden 
jealousy.  He  added:  "Listen,  Diana;  it's  time  to  keep 
an  eye  on  me.  I'm  having  supper  at  the  Knickerbocker 
after  the  play.  I  may  or  may  not  come  back  here  after- 
ward. I  don't  know.  I  want  to  get  this  business 
settled." 

Diana's  first  interview  with  the  chief  of  the  detec- 
tive bureau  to  which  she  had  been  recommended  by 
Ogden  Fenn  had  tried  her  cruelly. 

Mr.  Raghorn,  the  chief  of  the  bureau,  did  not  look 
like  a  detective.  He  was  diminutive,  plump,  and  child- 
like. 

"Mr.  Raghorn,"  she  had  said,  "I  have  been  told  that 
I  may  rely  absolutely  on  your  discretion."  His  voice 


204  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

was  pitched  too  high  and  he  had  a  quick,  sharp  way  of 
speaking.  "You  must,"  he  said. 

"I  want  very  much,"  she  said,  "to  have  someone 
watched." 

At  this  point  Mr.  Raghorn's  eyes  began  to  fascinate 
her.  They  were  bland,  childlike,  and  rather  too  full. 
They  were  pale  blue,  and  they  never  blinked. 

"It's  my  husband,"  she  said,  and  she  added,  "it 
oughtn't  to  be  very  hard.  He  is  quite  open  about  what 
he  does." 

"You  imagine  that  he  may  be  neglecting  you  for 
someone  else?" 

Diana  bowed  her  head  slowly,  and  did  not  look  up 
for  a  moment. 

"No  need  to  tell  me  why  you  want  him  watched.  If 
he  is  making  you  unhappy  I  am  very  sorry.  If  it's  the 
other  way  round,  I  don't  want  to  know."  Diana 
blushed  painfully.  "One  of  my  chief  sources  of  rev- 
enue," said  Mr.  Raghorn,  "is  watching  husbands 
whose  wives  have  fallen  in  love  with  somebody  else. 
But  my  work  is  bona  fide.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with 
motives.  I  do  not  compromise  the  husbands.  I  merely 
certify  that  they  are  compromised  and  send  in  my  bill." 

Diana  timidly  inquired  the  price  per  diem  of  having 
her  husband  watched.  Since  Manners  would  have  to 
pay  for  the  privilege  of  being  shadowed  the  fee  seemed 
exorbitant  and  she  said  so.  He  had  enough  heavy 
obligations  as  it  was.  But  Mr.  Raghorn  was  perfectly 
firm  about  the  figures. 

"But,"  Diana  objected,  "it  might  be  weeks  and 
weeks  before — before  anything  happened,  and  I  simply 
couldn't  pay  so  much." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  205 

"Perhaps,"  said  Mr.  Raghorn,  "your  intuition  may 
help  us  out.  One  of  these  days  you  might  have  what 
they  call  a  hunch,  and  tip  us  off  to  it.  Is  that  possi- 
ble?" Again  Diana  blushed  painfully. 

"The  whole  thing  is  a  sort  of  hunch,"  she  said.  "I'm 
not  sure  of  anything.  Perhaps  we  had  better  wait  a 
little." 

"Meanwhile,"  said  Mr.  Raghorn,  "I'll  have  one  of 
my  men  familiarize  himself  with  your  husband's  ap- 
pearance. Then  we'll  be  all  ready  to  pitch  in  when  you 
give  the  signal." 

"It  may  be  just  my  foolish  imagination,"  said  Diana, 
rising  slowly. 

"More  likely,"  thought  Raghorn,  when  she  had 
gone,  "it  is  the  husband's  foolish  chivalry." 

If  the  nasty  business  could  have  been  got  over  with 
at  once,  it  might  not  have  preyed  so  on  Diana's  mind. 
It  is  possible  that,  during  the  long  weeks  of  waiting  for 
Manners's  new  way  of  life  to  develop  the  one  concrete 
episode  which  the  law  required,  some  of  the  links  in 
the  chain  of  passion  by  which  she  was  bound  to  Fenn 
began  to  wear  thin.  A  chain,  as  all  men  know,  is  only 
as  strong  as  its  weakest  link.  But  perhaps  it  was  not 
her  passion  which  weakened  anywhere  or  in  any  way, 
and  she  had  begun  to  examine  more  often,  and  with 
greater  dismay,  the  impractical  meshes  of  her  entangle- 
ment. 

She  was  highly  determined  not  to  take  any  money 
from  her  husband;  Tarn's  expenses  he  was  of  course 
welcome  to  pay,  but  not  hers.  She  and  Fenn  then 
would  have  very  little  money;  that  is  at  first  they 
would  have  verv  little.  Fenn  was  confident  that  with 


206  »    THE    WILD    GOOSE 

Diana's  love  to  inspire  him  he  would  become  a  big 
earner.  Well,  that  love  had  already  been  inspiring 
him  for  a  good  many  months  without  producing  any 
startling  change  for  the  better  in  his  affairs.  To  be 
absolutely  historic  it  had  not  so  far  produced  any 
change  at  all. 

When  Manners  said  over  the  telephone  that  he 
would  bear  watching,  that  after  the  play  he  was  to  have 
supper  at  the  Knickerbocker,  she  was  in  one  of  her 
most  skeptical  and  discouraged  moods,  and  her  heart 
almost  stood  still.  And  it  was  with  no  sense  of  excite- 
ment or  elation,  but  heartsickly  and  with  bitterness, 
that  she  telephoned  to  Mr.  Raghorn  and  gave  him  the 
hint  for  which  he  had  been  waiting. 

She  herself  was  dining  that  night  at  the  Piping  Rock 
Club.  She  had  no  sooner  reached  the  club  than  upon 
a  sudden  resolution  she  went  to  the  telephone  and  tried 
to  get  in  connection  with  her  husband.  She  tried  the 
apartment.  He  had  dressed  and  gone  out  to  dinner. 
She  tried  Delmonico's,  Sherry's,  the  Ritz,  his  club, 
all  in  vain.  "But  never  mind,"  she  thought,  "he'll  be 
at  the  Knickerbocker  after  the  play.  That  won't  be 
too  late." 

But  he  was  not  at  the  Knickerbocker.  She  tele- 
phoned once  from  the  Piping  Rock  Club,  and  again 
when  she  got  home  to  make  sure.  She  learned  that 
Mr.  Manners  had  come  to  the  supper-room,  with  a 
party  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  but  as  there  had  been 
some  mistake  about  the  table  reserved  for  them  they 
had  gone  elsewhere.  The  Knickerbocker  was  very 
sorry,  but  it  could  not  say  where.  Diana  began  to  feel 
like  those  persons  who  in  their  efforts  to  do  right  are 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  207 

continuously  thwarted  and  brought  to  grief.  Exactly 
what  she  had  to  say  to  her  husband  she  did  not  know ; 
his  voice  over  the  wire  would  be  her  inspiration. 

But  it  is  certain  that  Diana  had  the  wish  to  save  him 
from  a  cynical  and  irrevocable  act.  She  had  more 
than  the  wish.  She  no  longer  loved  him,  but  mem- 
ories of  the  years  when  he  had  been  all  the  world  to 
her  now  filled  her  mind  and  heart.  His  long  faithful- 
ness in  loving  and  his  purity  now  smote  her  with  their 
full  value.  She  didn't  want  that  splendid  record 
smirched  and  spoiled.  She  wanted  her  freedom,  but 
she  did  not  want  to  pay  the  price.  That  even  now  her 
husband,  her  faithful  lover  for  so  many  years — but  the 
thought  was  intolerable.  What  did  the  partner  of  his 
crime  look  like  ? 

She  telephoned  to  every  place  in  the  city  at  which 
he  might  be  having  supper  with  his  gay  friends,  or 
alone  perhaps  with  the  woman  he  had  chosen.  But  all 
in  vain.  Mrs.  Langham  was  aware  of  the  telephoning 
that  was  going  on.  The  doors  and  the  partitions  of 
the  house  were  thin,  and  she  had  become  a  light  and 
fitful  sleeper.  She  heard  Diana's  feet  on  the  stair. 

"Diana,"  Mrs.  Langham  ventured,  "is  anything  the 
matter?" 

Without  moving  Diana  answered: 

"I  think  I  am  the  most  unhappy  woman  in  the 
world !" 

Such  an  admission,  so  utterly  unlike  Diana,  was 
very  startling  and  alarming  to  Diana's  mother.  But 
at  first  her  alarm  was  mixed  with  a  wild  hope.  Had 
Fenn  begun  to  cool  off?  If  only  that  were  the  case,  all 
might  yet  be  well.  But  Diana  dashed  that  hope. 


208  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"Do  you  think  it's  any  fun  to  have  ruined  the  best 
man  in  the  world?" 

"Then  why  not  stop  ruining  him?"  said  Mrs.  Lang- 
ham  with  good-natured  coolness,  "before  the  ruin  is 
complete?" 

"Oh,"  said  Diana,  "you've  known  what's  in  the 
wind,  though  you  never  speak  about  it.  It's  for  to- 
night. I've  tried  since  before  dinner  to  get  hold  of  him 
and  stop  him.  I  haven't  been  able  to  find  him.  It's 
too  late." 

"I  want  to  be  sure  that  I  understand." 

"Oh,  he's  somewhere  in  New  York  furnishing  me 
with  grounds  for  a  divorce.  And  I  have  hired  detec- 
tives to  trap  him,  and  I  wish  I  were  dead !" 

"Even  if  he  does  furnish  you  with  grounds,"  said 
Mrs.  Langham,  a  little  sharply,  "you  don't  have  to  use 
them.  If  you  do  use  them  you  will  always  be  a  very 
unhappy  woman." 

"Even  if  I  wanted  to,  I  couldn't  take  him  back  now." 

"Diana,"  said  her  mother,  "I  take  it  for  granted  that 
you  are  technically  a  good  woman ;  but  you've  let  men, 
not  your  husband,  kiss  the  bloom  off  you.  If  Frank 
said  that  he  couldn't  take  you  back  I'd  understand  and 
sympathize.  But  for  you  to  say  that  you  couldn't  take 
him  back  after  doing  what  you  have  insisted  on  his 
doing,  is  an  insult  to  my  sense  of  humor." 

"You've  always  been  on  his  side !" 

"Because  he  has  been  right  and  you  have  been 
wrong." 

Diana  went  slowly  downstairs  again  to  the  library. 
Mrs.  Langham,  remembering  Diana's  telephoning, 
went  back  to  her  room  a  moment  to  slip  into  a  gown 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  209 

and  then  followed  her  down.  As  she  came  in  Diana 
turned  to  her  again:  "You  can't  always  be  an  infallible 
judge  of  everything." 

"Perhaps  not,"  said  Mrs.  L-angham  dryly,  "but  I  can 
tell  you  how  to  straighten  out  your  life  and  clean  up 
the  awful  mess  you  have  made.  I  have  an  infallible 
method." 

"Yes?"  said  Diana. 

"Do  right,"  said  Mrs.  Langham.  "Do  the  one  thing 
you  have  never  done.  Do  right!" 

Before  Mrs.  Langham  had  reached  the  asylum  of 
her  own  room,  Diana  had  let  go  of  herself  and  begun 
to  sob. 


CHAPTER    XVI 

THE  reason  Diana  had  not  been  able  to  get  her  hus- 
band on  the  telephone  was  simple.  Finding  that  there 
had  been  a  mistake  about  their  table  at  the  Knicker- 
bocker, his  party  had  broken  up.  And  a  certain  Mrs. 
Herriot  had  driven  off  triumphantly  with  him. 

Gradually  they  had  been  thrown  more  and  more  into 
each  other's  company.  Mrs.  Herriot  was  the  only  lady 
in  the  half-world  who  so  far  had  attracted  Manners  in 
the  least.  She  was  straightforward  and  sincere,  gen- 
erous to  a  fault  (her  faults  were  mostly  owing  to  her 
generosity)  and  extremely  pretty.  Perceiving  that  no 
other  woman  of  her  acquaintance  had  any  attraction 
for  Manners  she  was  undeniably  flattered.  Already 
she  was  beginning  to  think  that  she  was  fond  of  him. 
He  had  proposed  merely  to  see  her  home,  but  it  was  in 
her  mind  that  the  affair  might  be  induced  to  progress 
a  little  further.  She  would  confide  to  him  that  she  had 
a  cold  roast  chicken  in  the  ice-box  and  a  bottle  of  very 
brut  champagne,  and  she  would  invite  him  to  share 
these  things  with  her.  It  would  not  be  her  fault  if  he 
went  supperless  to  bed. 

Mrs.  Herriot  was  not  a  siren.  She  liked  men;  be- 
cause she  was  generous,  she  was  extravagant,  and 
because  she  was  extravagant  she  was  usually  stone- 
broke.  In  addition  she  was  not  good  company  for 
herself. 

When  Manners  proposed  a  turn  in  the  Park  she  was 

210 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  211 

delighted.  It  was  obvious  that  he  was  in  no  hurry  to 
leave  her.  He  put  his  head  out  of  the  window  and 
gave  an  order  to  the  driver  of  their  taxi.  He  did  not 
at  once  withdraw  his  head  but  turned  and  looked  be- 
hind them  down  the  avenue.  A  few  moments  later 
they  had  entered  the  Park  at  Fifty-ninth  Street. 

"Most  any  park's  a  lovely  thing  at  night!"  said 
Mrs.  Herriot,  "and  most  especially  this  old  park.  I 
used  to  roller-skate  all  over  it  when  I  was  a  little  girl. 
I  was  in  love  with  a  policeman." 

"It  isn't  so  hard  to  be  lovely  at  night,"  said  Man- 
ners. He  turned  and  smiled  quietly  at  her.  "Now  you 
manage  to  be  lovely  even  in  the  daytime.  That's  the 
great  test." 

Mrs.  Herriot  laughed  with  pleasure. 

"Do  please  say  that  again!"  she  cried.  "I  didn't 
know  you  ever  said  pretty  things  to  ladies." 

"But  I  do  sometimes,"  he  said,  "and  you  are  a 
witness." 

Now,  Manners  had  been  preparing  himself  during 
the  evening  to  play  in  some  such  scene  as  this.  Other~ 
wise,  so  heavy  was  his  heart,  he  could  not  have  spoken 
his  lines  with  conviction.  Diana  would  have  known 
instantly  that  he  had  had  a  good  deal  to  drink,  but  no- 
body else  would  have  known. 

The  Park  was  almost  deserted.  Manners  boldly 
slipped  an  arm  round  Mrs.  Herriot  and  drew  her  close 
to  his  side. 

"I  think  you're  a  very  sweet  little  person,"  he  said. 
She  said  nothing,  merely  turned  her  face  a  little,  and 
looked  earnestly  into  his  eyes.  Then  her  lips  trembled 
and  parted,  and  he  kissed  them. 


212  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

Mrs.  Harriot's  is  a  practical  world.  The  lovemak- 
ing  in  it  is  swift  and  to  the  point.  The  women  have 
no  illusions  about  themselves.  The  men  have  no  illu- 
sions about  the  women.  But  Manners  did  not  belong 
to  Mrs.  Herriot's  world.  And  he  told  her  that  he  was 
fond  of  her,  and  wanted  her,  so  shyly  and  boyishly  and 
tenderly  that  she  was  deeply  touched.  She  fancied  her- 
self as  playing  a  useful  and  comforting  role  in  the  life 
of  a  sufficiently  celebrated  man.  He  could  soon  per- 
ceive that  at  heart  she  was  ever  so  decent  and  domestic ; 
that  she  only  appeared  to  love  gaiety  and  late  hours. 
Perhaps  he  would  not  just  pay  her  visits  when  he  felt 
so  inclined.  She  pictured  an  end  of  her  disordered 
and  disorderly  life  and  the  beginnings  of  new  and  bet- 
ter things.  Mixed  with  these  thoughts,  and  gradually 
displacing  them,  the  desire  bred  of  his  kisses  and 
caresses  at  length  mastered  her.  And  when  she  saw 
that  the  taxi  had  nearly  completed  the  tour  of  the  Park, 
her  eyes  narrowed  and  she  rejoiced  exceedingly.  She 
had  never  taken  any  stern  measures  to  discipline  her 
temperament.  And  she  believed  that  Manners  wanted 
her  just  as  much  as  she  wanted  him.  He  had  made 
her  believe  that.  But  his  soul  was  in  a  turmoil. 

Mrs.  Herriot's  kisses  were  horribly  like  Diana's  at 
their  best.  In  several  ways  she  was  not  unlike  Diana. 
She  had  the  same  loving  note  in  her  voice  that  Diana 
had  had  when  she  was  in  love  with  him.  She  had  the 
same  trustful  way  of  melting  into  an  embrace.  Since 
he  must  sin  he  was  glad  that  he  had  chosen  to  sin  with 
Mrs.  Herriot.  But  as  the  liquor  died  in  him  the 
thought,  mixed,  for  he  was  human,  with  genuine  de- 
sire, of  being  unfaithful  to  Diana  seemed  horrible  to 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  213 

him.  And  for  the  first  time  he  thought  seriously  of 
cheating  the  law.  "Let  them  find  us  together,"  he 
thought,  "and  let  the  world  think  what  it  must,  only 
let  me  know  that  I  have  been  faithful,  only  let  me  go 
on  being  faithful  till  death." 

To  the  Wild  Goose  death,  even  torture,  appeared 
infinitely  preferable  to  unfaithfulness. 

The  taxi  had  turned  the  corner  of  the  street  in  which 
Mrs.  Herriot  lived.  A  moment  later  Manners  thrust 
his  head  out  of  the  window  and  looked  behind  them. 
Then  he  turned  to  Mrs.  Herriot  and  said: 

"How  much  does  your  reputation  mean  to  you  ?" 

"I'd  hate  people  to  say  I  wasn't  a  good  sport. 
Otherwise  I  have  no  reputation.  Why?" 

"I'm  being  followed.  There's  a  taxi  just  behind 
with  two  men  in  it.  They  got  in  just  as  we  were  leav- 
ing the  Knickerbocker.  They  followed  us  up  the  Ave- 
nue and  around  the  Park." 

"Have  you  got  enemies?" 

His  words  had  excited  without  alarming  her. 

"No,"  he  said,  "but  suppose  some  one  was  interested 
in  knowing  that  I  had  gone  to  your  apartment  for 
supper,  that  I  had  stayed  late,  and  that  we  were 
alone?" 

Mrs.  Herriot  cooled  a  little. 

"Am  I  part  of  a  put-up  job?" 

He  lied  at  once,  beautifully,  without  the  quiver  of 
an  eyelash. 

"No,"  he  said. 

"What  is  it  you  want  of  me?" 

"Nothing.  It's  like  this.  I  haven't  behaved  very 
well,  and  I  don't  intend  to.  But  it  would  be  hard  to 


214  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

prove  anything  against  me.  And  it  isn't  worth  dis- 
cussing, is  it?  Only  I  warn  you  to  send  me  home  if 
you  aren't  afraid  of  seeing  your  name  in  the  papers." 

She  quoted  from  a  play  she  had  once  seen  and 
admired. 

"There's  only  one  thing  worse  than  being  talked 
about,"  she  said,  "and  that's  not  being  talked  about." 

Manners  laughed  aloud.  The  taxi  drew  up  in  front 
of  the  nickel-and-glass  door  of  a  handsome  apartment- 
house.  The  second  taxi  did  not  at  once  stop,  but  kept 
on  west  for  a  dozen  numbers  or  so.  Meanwhile  Man- 
ners and  Mrs.  Herriot  had  entered  the  building,  and 
were  waiting  for  the  elevator  to  take  them  to  Mrs. 
Herriot's  apartment. 

When  the  door  of  that  apartment  had  closed  behind 
them,  Manners  said:  "How  about  that  cold  bottle, 
Elaine?  I'm  dry  as  dust." 

"Frank,"  it  was  the  faintest  whisper. 

"Yes,  Elaine." 

"You  can't  sleep?" 

"No,  dear." 

The  effects  of  the  liquor  that  Manners  had  drunk 
to  dull  his  moral  senses  had  died. 

He  ached  to  the  marrow  with  feelings  of  shame, 
remorse  and  degradation.  Mixed  with  these  feelings 
was  a  great  tenderness  and  pity  for  the  little  person  at 
his  side,  who  was  at  once  so  naive  and  sophistocatcd. 
so  gentle  and  so  ardent. 

"I'm  sorry.    It's  horrid  to  lie  awake." 

"Don't  you  worry  about  me." 

"But  I  do." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  215 

Her  tone  of  solicitude  was  grateful.  He  forced  a 
laugh. 

"You  attend  to  your  sleeping,  and  I'll  attend  to  mine. 
I  oughtn't  to  drink  champagne.  It  keeps  me  awake." 

"It  isn't  that.  You've  got  something  on  your  mind. 
I've  known  that  all  along.  You  haven't  lived  a  very 
gay  life,  have  you?  I've  known  that  all  along.  Do 
you  wish  you  hadn't  stayed?" 

"You've  been  very  sweet  to  me." 

Little  Mrs.  Herriot  sighed. 

"Was  it  the  truth  when  you  said  that  I  wasn't  part 
of  a  put-up  job?" 

Now  that  the  liquor  was  dead  in  Manners  the 
thought  of  lying  seemed  much  too  dull  and  wearisome. 

"Would  you  be  angry?    You'd  have  a  right  to  be." 

"Not  angry.     Hurt !" 

"But  I  am  fond  of  you.  I  think  you're  sweet.  I 
think  you're  a  wonderful  little  person.  I  want  to  paint 
something  with  you  in  it.  I  could  change  your  face 
the  least  bit  so  that  you  wouldn't  be  recognized.  I'd 
like  to  paint  you  against  the  light,  so  that  your  outline 
would  be  a  kind  of  golden  haze." 

"When  will  you  do  it?" 

"When  I  get  my  affairs  all  in  order.  August  maybe. 
It'll  be  out  of  doors,  so  we'll  need  warm  weather.  I 
could  take  a  little  bungalow  studio  on  the  coast  some- 
where. Would  you  like  that?" 

"Then  I'm  not  altogether  part  of  a  put-up  job?" 

"Not  now." 

"You're  not  going  to  chuck  me  right  off?" 

She  hoped  he  would  say  that  he  was  never  going 
to  chuck  her.  But  all  he  said  was:  "No,  dear." 


216  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

Mrs.  Herriot  was  very  wise  as  to  men's  moods.  She 
knew  that  her  companion  was  suffering  deeply  and  her 
instincts  guessed  the  cause. 

"You  don't  want  to  be  divorced,  do  you  ?"  she  asked. 

"I'd  rather  die."  There  was  a  pang  of  sudden  hope- 
less grief  in  his  voice. 

"When  a  man  loves  his  wife,"  said  Mrs.  Herriot, 
"he  is  all  kinds  of  a  fool  to  let  her  divorce  him.  He 
ought  not  to  for  her  sake." 

"But  suppose  the  man's  wife  is  desperately  in  love 
with  some  one  else?" 

"Oh,  that !"  said  Mrs.  Herriot  skeptically. 

In  theory  Manners  would  have  stood  torture  sooner 
than  discuss  intimate  family  affairs  with  a  light 
woman,  and  already  he  felt  that  he  had  said  too  much, 
and  at  the  same  time  he  was  curious  to  know  just  what 
the  point  of  view  of  a  woman  like  Mrs.  Herriot  would 
be.  With  a  sudden  burst  of  confidence  she  enlightened 
him. 

"Men,"  she  said,  "always  want  to  know  how  the 
woman  they're  with  first  happened  to  go  wrong. 
Women  are  always  prepared  to  answer  that  question. 
Sometimes  they  say  one  thing,  sometimes  another. 
That's  because  it's  always  easy  to  make  up  something 
grander  than  the  truth.  The  most  notorious  woman 
likes  to  believe  that  she  would  have  been  okeh  if  she 
hadn't  had  such  bad  luck  that  nobody  could  possibly 
make  head  against  it.  Would  you  like  it  if  I  told  you 
about  me?  You've  never  asked  or  even  hinted.  I 
think  I'd  like  to  tell  you." 

"What — one  thing  or  the  other  ?" 

"You  know  better.     The  truth.     Knowing  the  truth 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  217 

from  the  woman's  point  of  view  might  help  you  more 
than  any  amount  of  good  advice." 

"I'd  love  to  know  all  about  you,"  said  Manners. 

"I  was  crazy  about  the  man  I  married,"  began  Mrs. 
Herriot  abruptly,  "and  he  was  crazy  about  me.  He 
was  a  one-woman  man.  He'd  never  really  liked  any- 
body but  me.  And  I  guess  for  a  while  we  were  just 
about  as  happy  as  two  people  can  be.  We'd  be  happy 
right  now  if  I'd  had  any  sense.  One  trouble  was  I  had 
nothing  to  do  but  keep  house.  We  had  a  tiny  house, 
and  it  was  easy  to  keep.  But  I  guess  even  big  houses 
aren't  as  hard  to  keep  as  women  like  to  make  out.  It 
used  to  take  me  about  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two  hours 
a  day  at  the  very  most.  I  never  liked  sewing  or  sitting 
around  gossiping  or  reading,  and  so  the  rest  of  the  day 
when  my  husband  was  down-town  I  had  nothing  much 
to  do  except  kill  time  the  best  way  I  could.  I  tried  to 
learn  golf  and  tennis,  but  I  was  rotten  at  them.  My 
husband  bought  me  a  pony  and  I  took  some  riding  les- 
sons, but  I  had  a  fall  and  lost  my  sand.  I  don't  quite 
know  how  it  began,  but  I  got  playing  with  a  little 
crowd  at  the  country  club  that  were  pretty  gay.  The 
men  didn't  have  to  work  and  the  women  didn't  want 
to  stay  put.  They  laughed  at  everything  that  was  seri- 
ous, and  pretended  that  they  didn't  care  what  hap- 
pened. Most  of  that  was  bluff;  but  it  took  me  in.  I 
got  silly  ideas  about  men  and  women  and  children. 
When  I  found  that  I  was  going  to  have  a  baby  I  was 
ashamed  to  go  around  with  the  crowd  any  more.  And 
I  stayed  home  eating  my  heart  out  thinking  of  the  good 
times  they  were  having  and  what  bad  luck  I'd  had. 
But  one  of  the  men  used  to  drop  in  to  see  me  real  often. 


218  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

I  didn't  mind  him.  He  never  seemed  to  notice  that  I 
wasn't  looking  my  best.  He  was  full  of  fun  and  would 
always  make  me  laugh.  First  thing  I  knew  I  was 
thinking  about  that  man  oftener  than  about  my  own 
husband.  And  I  read  some  books  we  had  in  the  house 
about  the  great  loves  of  history.  It  seemed  to  me 
beautiful  for  a  married  woman  to  have  a  lover  who 
wasn't  a  lover,  but  just  a  spiritual  affinity." 

"I  guess  a  good  many  women  have  that  idea,"  Man- 
ners interrupted. 

"All  women  at  some  time  or  other.  I  know  a  girl 
whose  ideal  of  happiness  was  to  get  married  first  and 
find  a  real  mate  afterward.  Silly  fools!  After  my 
baby  was  born  my  husband  got  into  some  things  that 
kept  him  from  home  more  than  ever.  He  not  only 
had  to  go  to  town  every  day  and  stay  late,  but  he  had 
to  make  long  trips  to  other  cities.  We  had  more  and 
more  money  to  spend,  but  I  had  more  and  more  time 
to  kill.  And  the  man  hung  around  more  and  more.  He 
made  me  think  I  was  neglected  and  unhappy  before  I'd 
ever  thought  of  such  a  thing.  Then  he  said  he  was 
making  me  conspicuous  by  our  all  the  time  being  seen 
together.  And  after  that  I  used  to  meet  him  in  town 
and  we'd  have  lunch  at  quiet  places  where  we  weren't 
likely  to  see  people  we  knew.  And  sometimes,  just  to 
prove  to  myself  that  I  didn't  give  a  darn  what  other 
people  thought,  I'd  go  to  his  rooms  for  tea.  I  was 
just  an  imprudent  little  fool,  nothing  worse.  Well, 
my  husband  found  out  and  cut  up  something  awful. 
He  told  me  to  drop  the  man  at  once,  and  for  good,  or 
he'd  kill  him.  I  told  him  I  loved  the  man  with  all  my 
heart  and  soul,  that  he  was  good  and  strong,  and 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  219 

wouldn't  ever  neglect  me,  and  I  wanted  to  be  free  to 
marry  him.  My  husband  asked  me  once  and  for  all 
would  I  give  up  the  man  or  wouldn't  I.  And  I  said 
I'd  die  first.  My  husband  said  then  give  him  a  few 
days  to  think  things  over  and  in  the  meanwhile  for 
God's  sake  not  to  do  anything  I'd  always  regret.  But 
he  didn't  take  any  time  to  think  things  over.  He  got 
a  piece  of  lead  pipe  out  of  the  cellar  and  he  went 
straight  to  the  man's  rooms  and  waited  till  the  man 
came  in.  I  didn't  know  at  the  time.  And  I  kept  writ- 
ing and  telephoning ;  but  the  man  kept  out  of  the  way. 
One  day  I  met  him  face  to  face  in  the  street,  but  he 
just  hurried  by  and  pretended  not  to  see  me.  There 
was  some  mystery  about  it.  My  husband  did  some- 
thing awful  to  him.  And  he  nearly  died  of  it.  And 
he  couldn't  bring  an  action  against  my  husband,  be- 
cause it  would  involve  my  name  and  because  he  was 
ashamed  to. 

"But  my  husband  and  I  never  really  got  back  to  first 
principles;  we'd  each  hurt  the  other  too  much.  And 
I  fell  in  love  again,  and  my  husband  was  bored  and 
tired  by  that  time,  and  he  let  me  go.  He  furnished 
grounds  and  let  me  have  our  little  boy  for  my  reputa- 
tion's sake  and  paid  big  alimony.  But  he  warned  me 
what  would  happen.  He  said  that  big  stiff  you're 
crazy  about  is  notorious.  He  doesn't  want  to  marry 
you.  See?  He  was  right.  First,  he  couldn't  be  mar- 
ried till  he'd  rounded  up  some  business  in  the  West; 
then  it  was  because  his  aunt  who  was  dying  didn't  be- 
lieve in  divorces  and  he  was  afraid  she'd  change  her 
will.  But  he  fooled  me.  I  trusted  him  absolutely. 
When  I  found  out  that  I'd  been  fooled,  it  wasn't  the 


220  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

being  fooled  that  hurt  most;  but  thinking  about  my 
husband,  and  how  I'd  hurt  him  and  ruined  him,  just 
because  I  was  vain  and  ruthless  and  couldn't  stay  put. 
I'd  have  given  anything  in  God's  world  to  go  back 
to  him;  but  I'd  been  fooled  to  the  limit  and  couldn't 
even  ask.  Then  he  died.  And  that  was  the  end  of 
the  alimony  and  everything.  His  brother  offered  me 
a  little  allowance  on  condition  that  I'd  give  up  my  little 
boy  to  him,  change  my  name,  and  lie  dead  so  far  as  the 
family  was  concerned.  I'm  just  a  typical  case." 

Having  told  her  career  Mrs.  Herriot  became  infatu- 
ated with  the  subject,  and  embellished  it  with  many  de- 
tails and  comments.  And  she  tried  of  course,  naming 
no  names,  to  draw  a  parallel  between  herself  and 
Diana  Manners. 

"We  women,"  she  concluded,  "always  end  by  learn- 
ing our  lesson;  but  most  always  it's  too  late  to  be  any 
practical  good.  Do  you  think  if  I  had  my  chance  over 
again  that  I  wouldn't  stick?  Nine  times  out  of  ten 
it's  the  women  like  me,  women  that  men  don't  marry 
(unless  they  are  drunk),  who  would  make  the  most 
faithful  wives.  We've  learned  the  beauty  and  the 
value  of  faithfulness." 

Manners  looked  at  his  watch.  It  was  already  six 
o'clock. 

"The  gentlemen  in  the  other  taxi,"  he  thought, 
"have  had  a  long  wait." 


CHAPTER   XVII 

FRANK  MANNERS  did  not  see  Diana  for  a  number  of 
days.  Nor  did  he  see  Mrs.  Herriot  nor  any  one  whom 
he  could  avoid  seeing.  He  was  in  a  state  of  moral  and 
mental  anguish.  It  would  have  been  better  to  have 
cheated  the  law.  Anything  would  have  been  better 
than  to  have  so  smirched  and  lowered  himself  in  his 
own  eyes.  Diana  was  his  wife.  Whether  she  aban- 
doned him  or  not,  that  was  a  fact  which  could  not  be 
altered.  He  had  taken  her  for  better  or  for  worse.  He 
had  gone  back  on  his  oath.  He  was  a  perjurer.  More 
and  more  clearly  he  realized  that  his  whole  course  had 
been  wrong.  "From  the  moment  I  learned  about 
Fenn,"  he  thought,  "I  have  done  the  wrong  thing 
every  time  there  was  a  chance  to  do  anything."  And 
he  saw  very  clearly  what  he  should  have  done.  "I 
ought  not  to  have  said  that  they  could  see  each  other 
once  in  a  while,"  he  thought;  "I  ought  to  have  told 
them  that  they  must  go  for  a  year  without  seeing  each 
other  or  hearing  of  each  other,  and  that  if  at  the  end 
of  the  year  Diana  still  felt  that  she  wanted  to  marry 
him,  I'd  arrange  matters  so  that  she  could.  But  Diana 
would  have  refused  with  horrible  threats — just  as  in 
fact  she  did  refuse  any  such  suggestion.  Still,  I  ought 
to  have  said  my  little  say  and  stood  pat.  I  ought  to 
have  been  perfectly  easy-tempered  about  the  whole 
thing.  I  ought  not  to  have  allowed  myself  to  be  so 
upset.  I  should  have  made  Diana  understand  that 

221 


222  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

every  time  she  saw  Fenn  she  simply  put  off  the  end 
of  her  probationary  year,  and  I  should  have  gone  my 
way  peacefully  and  confidently.  I  ought  to  have 
trusted  her.  If  we  hadn't  had  horrible  scenes  she 
wouldn't  have  run  off  with  him.  If  I'd  kept  my  temper 
and  heartaches  to  myself  and  gone  on  quietly  about  my 
business  everything  would  have  come  out  all  right." 

Manners  really  believed  this,  and  not  without  good 
grounds.  It  is  true  that  at  first  Diana  would  have  re- 
fused any  such  bargain.  But  the  chances  were  that  in 
the  long  run  she  would  have  accepted  his  end  of  it. 
That  she  could  keep  in  love  with  a  man  like  Fenn  for 
a  whole  year  without  ever  seeing  him  was  a  ridiculous 
idea.  She  wasn't  that  kind  of  a  woman.  Manners 
felt  very  sure  of  this.  "I  had  a  perfectly  good  chance," 
he  thought,  "and  I  didn't  see  it.  I  didn't  think  I  had 
any.  And  now,  God  help  me,  everything  is  all  over. 
And  Diana's  done  for,  and  I'm  done  for,  and  Tam 
hasn't  half  the  chance  she  ought  to  have." 

During  these  days  he  received  several  notes  from 
Mrs.  Herriot  and  answered  them ;  but  he  did  not  go  to 
see  her.  Later  on  he  would  begin  to  see  her  again. 
He  could  sink  no  deeper  into  degradation,  and  in  time 
she  might  become  of  definite  comfort  to  him.  At  least 
he  would  not  see  her  until  he  had  seen  Diana.  But  he 
kept  putting  off  that  interview,  and  in  the  end  it  was 
Diana  who  came  to  see  him. 

Diana  had  no  manner  of  pushing  a  bell-button  that 
was  in  any  way  individual  with  herself.  All  depended 
on  her  mood.  So  that  when  the  bell  of  the  apartment 
sounded  it  was  only  Manners's  intuition  which  could 
have  told  him  that  it  was  his  wife  who  had  rung  it. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  223 

The  poor,  driven  man  had  committed  no  great 
crime,  and  yet  he  started  as  might  a  criminal  at  the 
step  of  those  who  have  come  to  take  him.  A  sudden 
fear  of  the  woman  whom  he  had  in  no  way  wronged 
possessed  him ;  and  he  did  not  at  once  go  to  open  the 
door.  Yet  if  it  was  to  be  opened  at  all  he  must  do  it 
himself,  for  the  man  who  valeted  had  been  sent  upon 
an  errand,  and  the  woman  who  came  in  by  the  day  had 
finished  her  work  and  gone  home.  He  had  the  im- 
pulse to  let  the  bell  go  unanswered,  and  that  impulse 
lasted  a  long  moment.  He  rose,  then,  slowly,  went  to 
the  door  and  opened  it. 

"I  knew  it  was  you,"  he  said.    "Come  in." 

"You  were  a  long  time  answering  the  bell." 

"I  know  it.     Sit  down !" 

He  himself  withdrew  to  a  distance  of  some  yards. 

"I  didn't  want  to  see  you,  Diana.  I  am  very  sor- 
rowful and  ashamed.  You  have  had  a  report  from 
Mr.  Raghorn?" 

"Yes,  Frank." 

Her  voice  was  icy  cool.  Her  eyes  at  the  same  time 
were  rather  warm  with  interest  and  curiosity  and  there 
was  in  their  expression  also  a  trace  of  horror  and 
jealousy.  There  was  in  her,  though  she  did  not  recog- 
nize it  as  such,  the  fear  that  her  husband  was  not  now, 
after  his  experience  with  Mrs.  Herriot,  so  sorry  that 
he  was  to  be  divorced.  If  anyone  had  said:  "But  don't 
you  want  your  poor  husband  to  be  happy,  too?"  she 
would  have  answered  valiantly,  "Of  course."  And 
that  would  not  have  been  the  whole  truth.  It  would 
have  been  a  sort  of  magnanimous  intellectual  gesture, 
contradicted  by  all  the  self-centerment  of  her  sex. 


224  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"I  could  not  now,  Diana,"  said  her  husband,  "ask 
you  to  come  back  to  me."  He  smiled  with  a  certain 
wistfulness  and  shook  his  head.  "Yet  it  only  needed 
what  has  happened  to  prove  to  me  that  I  have  not  been 
altogether  selfish  in  trying  to  keep  you.  My  dear,  for 
every  woman  in  this  world  there  is  one  man  and  not 
two.  For  every  man  there  is  one  woman.  You  were 
that  woman  to  me  and  I  was  that  man  to  you.  Between 
us  we  have  made  a  mess  of  things,  and  the  hour  has 
struck.  It  is  a  great  pity.  Some  benefits  you  may 
think  at  first  that  you  have  found  with  the  new  love, 
but  in  the  end  you  will  only  feel  that  you  have  been 
wanton,  and  that  you  have  been  smirched.  You  must 
divorce  me  now,  of  course.  I  see  that.  I  should  never 
have  consented  to  do  what  I  have  done.  It  is  just  as 
wicked  as  if  it  had  been  by  my  own  beastly  and  inconti- 
nent wish.  I  used  to  think  that  purity  was  of  the  heart 
and  soul;  and  that  the  woman,  for  instance,  who  had 
been  taken  against  her  will  was  as  pure  as  the  woman 
who  had  never  been  taken  at  all.  But  I  was  wrong. 
Facts  are  facts  and  they  are  terrible  things.  .  .  .  But 
I  don't  know  why  I  should  deliver  you  an  oration. 
Won't  you  have  a  cup  of  tea  or  something?" 

"You  feel  pretty  rotten,  don't  you?"  said  Diana, 
shaking  her  head. 

"I  do.  I  should  like  to  die  now,  except  that  as  I  see 
it,  and  as  all  the  rest  of  us  see  it,  except  you,  and  you 
will  the  moment  the  pinch  comes,  you  will  need  all  the 
money  I  can  give  you,  so  I  must  stay  alive  and  earn  it." 

"You  know  it's  perfectly  understood  that  you  are 
not  to  give  me  a  penny,  except  maybe  just  a  tiny  allow- 
ance for  Tarn." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  225 

"That's  my  entering  wedge,  dear.  The  people  Tarn 
is  to  live  with  must  live  comfortably.  If  Tarn  is  to 
have  things  as  she  has  always  had  them,  it  isn't  only 
clothes,  and  doctors,  and  food  that  count;  it's  sur- 
roundings, a  general  source  of  ease  and  well-being. 
That  she's  always  had.  That  she  always  must  have. 
You  will  see  that  I  am  right  when  the  time  comes. 
You  may  think  that  you  will  enjoy  picknicking  until 
a  ripe  old  age.  But  you  won't.  You  may  think  that 
you  will  enjoy  being  a  real  wife  and  helpmate ;  I  know 
that  is  your  plan,  but  you  won't.  You  will  never  really 
enjoy  being  anything  but  Diana." 

The  young  woman's  eyes  filled  with  tears.  The  bit- 
terness of  her  husband's  words  coupled  with  the  gentle- 
ness of  his  voice  moved  her  more  than  he  could  have 
moved  her  in  any  other  way. 

"I  thought  I'd  been  a  pretty  good  wife  to  you. 
Frank,  for  a  time,  anyway." 

"My  darling,"  he  said,  moved  in  his  turn  at  remem- 
bering the  wonder  of  all  that  young  passionate  girl- 
hood she  had  given  him,  that  almost  dog-like  trust  and 
adoration,  the  overwhelming  generosities,  "you  were 
everything  in  the  world  to  me,  love  and  the  heart  and 
soul  of  love ;  life  and  the  breath  of  life.  You  were  like 
some  delicious  armful  of  roses  without  thorns;  and 
surely  some  day — oh" — he  paraphrased: 

"  'My  dust  would  hear  you  and  beat, 
Had  I  lain  for  a  century  dead; 
Would  start  and  tremble  under  your  feet, 
And  blossom  in  purple  and  red.' " 

He  paused  and  stood  for  quite  a  long  time  looking 
at  her,  chin  on  hand.  She  did  not  return  his  look.  She 


226  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

felt  that  she  might  lose  control  of  herself  if  she  did. 
She  tried  to  fix  her  mind  on  something  quite  unrelated 
to  the  matter  in  hand.  What  she  managed  to  think  of 
was  not  altogether  unrelated — a  purple-and-red  dress 
— but  it  steadied  her,  and  she  returned  his  look. 

"But  a  good  wife  to  me,  Diana?  That  you  were 
never.  You've  helped  me  wonderfully  in  lots  of  ways ; 
but  that's  not  being  a  good  wife.  You  helped  me  be- 
cause you  wanted  to.  And  the  help  grew  less  precisely 
as  your  wish  to  help  grew,  less,  until  your  wish  to  help 
me  either  ceased  entirely  or  became  the  empassioned 
wish  to  help  somebody  else.  ...  I  tell  you,  upon  my 
soul,  Diana,  I  want  you  to  be  happy  in  your  new  life. 
If  I  didn't,  I  should  let  you  off  by  telling  you  that  you 
were  exquisite  and  charming  and  adorable ;  but  if  you 
are  going  to  make  good  with  your  new  husband  you'll 
have  to  be  a  lot  more  things  than  that. 

"I  made  a  little  house  for  you.  It  was  remote  and 
all  that ;  but  we  loved  each  other,  we  had  our  way  to 
make  in  the  world,  and  it  was  a  dear  and  complete  little 
house  in  a  very  lovely  country,  and  it  was  a  place 
where  I  could  work.  Will  you  exonerate  me  in  ad- 
vance from  giving  the  impression  that  my  work  is  of 
any  artistic  value,  or  that  I  so  consider  it  ?  Compared 
to  the  real  thing  it  isn't  worth  a  hang,  never  was,  and 
never  will  be,  and  there  is  only  one  chance  in  a  million 
that  it  ever  might  have  been.  Exonerate  me  at  least 
from  that  form  of  egotism.  But  to  us  it  was  the  most 
valuable  thing  in  the  world.  It  was  our  bread  and 
butter.  It  was  all  we  had  to  go  on,  our  insurance 
against  old  age,  the  guarantee  that  our  children  should 
have  a  home  and  education,  and  a  little  something  to 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  227 

start  life  with.  But  in  your  realm  of  life  the  work 
counted  for  nothing.  'Oh,  Frank/  you  used  to  tell 
people,  'is  so  lucky.  He  doesn't  have  to  go  to  a  poky 
office.  Wherever  he  is  there  his  work  is.'  But  a 
painter,  my  dear,  must  have  his  office  just  as  much  as 
a  lawyer  must  have  his.  He  must  work  as  patiently 
and  methodically  and  uninterruptedly.  Wherever  we 
have  been,  wherever  we  did  cast  our  lines  I  managed 
to  do  some  sort  of  work,  and  it  was  like  pulling  teeth, 
I  can  tell  you.  Newport,  with  dinners  and  dances. 
And  me  up  at  seven  to  get  some  work  done,  and  you 
sleeping  till  the  roses  of  which  you  are  made  were  all 
pink  and  fresh  again.  ..." 

"But  you  loved  that  sort  of  life?" 

"Yes.  Who  wouldn't?  Gaiety  and  attractive 
people ;  and  money  and  champagne  passing  round,  and 
bully  times  and  swimming!  I  did  love  that  life.  I 
have  no  call  to  be  a  painter.  God  never  put  his  finger 
on  my  shoulder  and  said  'I  choose  you/  I  had  to  do 
something,  and  painting  was  my  best  bet.  Do  you 
think  for  a  moment  I  wouldn't  rather  have  spent  all  of 
my  life  having  a  good  time,  frolicking  and  laughing? 
Of  course  I  would.  I  loved  Newport  and  Palm  Beach 
and  all  the  hard  riding  between  places;  but  most  of  all 
I  loved  to  see  you  having  a  good  time.  But  I  knew 
it  was  wrong  for  us  to  live  like  that — oh,  sometimes  it 
was  all  right !  But  it  was  not  all  right  when  we  didn't 
have  the  money  and  had  to  go  in  hock  for  our  fun. 
And  when  I  objected  you  turned  cool  at  once.  You 
said  I  was  making  more  money  every  year,  why 
worry?  I  was  making  more  money  every  year,  but 
how?  By  doing  work — oh,  it  was  as  good  as  I  could 


228  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

do,  I  guess,  but  it  wasn't  the  kind  of  work  that  paved 
the  way  for  better  work  later  on.  I  was  in  the  forma- 
tive period.  I  should  have  been  experimenting  and 
studying,  instead  of  swelling  around  pretending  that  I 
had  arrived.  And  you,  Diana,  shouldn't  have  made 
the  mistake  of  giving  the  best  that  was  in  you  to  other 
things.  You  should  have  given  it  to  the  work,  not  to 
me,  to  the  work.  People  have  to  live  for  something. 
We  should  have  lived  for  the  thing  that  enabled  us  to 
live  at  all.  But  you  didn't.  Oh,  I  am  to  blame,  too," 
he  interrupted  a  protest  that  Diana  was  about  to  make. 
"We  didn't.  We  went  where  we  wanted  to  go,  lived 
as  we  wanted  to  live.  We  didn't  go  where  the  wrork 
wanted  to  go,  or  live  as  the  work  demanded  that  we 
should  live.  That  is  our  failure ;  that  and  not  listening 
to  the  voices  of  the  little  children  who  wanted  to  be 
born,  the  little  children  that  the  work  had  a  right  to 
want.  That  is  where  we  have  failed  and  why.  Of 
course,  you  have  fallen  in  love  with  another  man.  We 
hadn't  the  sweetness  of  sacrifices  offered  in  common  to 
fall  back  on." 

With  the  point  of  view  that  was  characteristic  of 
her,  Diana  said:  "Then  I  don't  see  any  use  in  rubbing 
it  in.  It  can't  be  helped  now." 

"Of  course  it  can't — now,"  said  Manners  with  a 
slight  show  of  impatience.  "And  I  am  not  talking  for 
our  benefit,  but  for  yours.  You  see  your  welfare,  even 
far  off,  and  utterly  beyond  my  control,  touches  very 
closely.  You  have  not  been  a  good  wife  to  me,  Di, 
dear,  you  know  that,  don't  you?" 

"Oh,  I   suppose   I   do.      But  I   didn't  come  to  be 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  229 

scolded.  I  came  because  I  knew  you'd  feel  terribly, 
and  to  say  that  I  am  sorry,  and  to  thank  you." 

But  he  would  not  be  diverted  from  his  intention  to 
say  what  was  on  his  mind. 

"If  I  let  myself  think  about  Fenn,"  he  said,  "I  see 
red  and  I  want  to  see  him  punished.  He  has  no  excuse. 
But  I  say  to  myself:  If  Diana  wasn't  mixed  up  with 
him,  he  is  a  man  you  couldn't  possibly  either  like  or 
dislike.  If  you  happened  to  know  him,  you  certainly 
wouldn't  take  the  trouble  to  cross  the  street  to  speak 
with  him,  so  I  try  to  leave  Fenn  out  of  my  thoughts 
and  calculations.  To  punish  him  would  punish  you. 
I  don't  want  you  punished.  I  want  you  to  get  the  most 
that  is  possible  out  of  your  life.  There  is  only  one  way, 
Diana.  Do  right.  Give  this  fellow  a  square  deal. 
Don't  think  that  loving  1iim  a  whole  lot  for  a  while  is 
the  best  you  can  do.  Steel  yourself  against  the  night 
when  his  passion  is  still  aflame  and  yours  has  flickered 
out.  That  is  one  of  the  great  test-moments  which  de- 
cides whether  a  wife  is  going  to  be  a  success  or  not. 
There  are  other  test-moments;  when  he  lays  before  her 
some  matter  in  which  his  whole  interest  is  involved. 
Try  to  be  interested.  When  you  know  that  you  are 
spending  too  much  be  the  first  one  to  say  so,  and  be 
the  one  to  suggest  the  ways  and  means  of  retrench- 
ment. Don't  leave  that  hellish  duty  to  him.  .  .  ." 

"Frank,"  said  Diana  a  little  coldly,  for  she  hated 
any  mention  of  money  matters,  "don't  you  imagine 
that  we'll  be  able  to  work  these  things  out  for  our- 
selves ?" 

"Not  unless  you  go  to  him  in  the  sackcloth  and 
ashes  of  true  penitence.  Not  unless  you  see  in  what 


23o  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

way  you  have  been  a  waster  and  profligate  both  of  lives 
and  material.  Not  unless,  when  you  speak  the  mar- 
riage lines  in  that  beautiful  -and  moving  voice  of  yours, 
you  have  some  idea  what  they  mean  and  intend  to  keep 
their  promises.  When  you  married  me  you  didn't 
know  what  you  were  saying.  So  I  exonerate  you,  or 
rather,  I  forgive  you.  But  if  you  had  known  you 
would  simply  have  been  perjuring  yourself.  This  time 
you  will  have  some  idea  what  you  are  saying.  Don't 
let  it  be  a  perjury.  If  you  promise  to  love,  honor  and 
obey  Fenn  till  death  part  you,  for  God's  sake  do  so! 
You  have  said  to  me  time  and  again,  *lBut  how  can  I 
love  you  if  I  don't  love  you?'  Quibbles  like  that  don't 
free  a  woman  from  responsibility.  If  I  had  fallen  out 
of  love  with  you,  Diana,  you  would  never  have  known 
it  from  me.  So  help  me  God !  And  if  you  had  sus- 
pected, I  would  have  lied  and  denied  until  hell  froze 
over.  You  will  do  well  if  you  take  to  your  new  mar- 
riage the  code  of  honor  which  I  brought  you  in  ours." 

He  was  silent.  And  neither  of  them  spoke  for  a 
long  time.  Then  Manners  drew  close  to  his  wife,  and 
though  his  fingers  hovered  near  her  shoulder,  he  did 
not  actually  touch  her. 

"I  hope,  dear,"  he  said,  "that  I  shall  never  speak 
another  unkind  wrord  to  you,  or  think  any  more  unkind 
thoughts.  I  have  done  what  you  wished  me  to  do,  or 
what  it  seemed  exigent  for  me  to  do.  You  will  soon 
be  free.  We  must  not  meet  often,  or  the  law  might 
suspect  us  of  connivance.  If  it  is  better  that  we  should 
not  meet  any  more  at  all,  you  will  have  your  divorce 
upon  unimpeachable  grounds.  I  have  not  merely  fur- 
nished evidence,  I  have  broken  my  marriage  vows; 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  231 

smashed  down  all  the  ideals  that  I  had  of  life  and  con- 
duct. If  I  have  ever  wronged  you  and  sinned  against 
you  in  other  ways  I  am  paying  for  it  now." 

She  went  to  the  door  of  the  well-remembered  room, 
not  with  the  proud  look  of  a  free  woman,  but  with  the 
expression  of  a  child  that  has  been  whipped.  At  the 
door  she  turned.  He  had  followed  her  closely. 

"Frank,"  she  said  in  a  queer  little  voice,  "would  you 
like  to  kiss  me  good-by?" 

She  lifted  her  face,  her  lips  slightly  parted. 

"That's  all  right,  Di,"  he  said,  "that's  all  right." 

He  did  not  kiss  her ;  though  it  looked  for  a  moment 
as  if  he  was  going  to. 

"Have  you  a  cab  waiting?"  he  asked.  "I'll  go  down 
and  put  you  in  it." 

"No,"  she  said,  "don't  come  down." 

He  lifted  his  eyebrows  in  a  kind  of  mocking  inter- 
rogation. 

"Waiting  for  you,  is  he?  Waiting  for  the  post- 
mortem?" 

She  turned  again  impulsively. 

"Don't — don't  be  so  bitter!"  she  exclaimed,  "please 
don't.  I  am  going  through  hell." 

"I'm  sure  you  are,"  he  said,  "sure  of  it.  I'm  sorry 
for  you." 

So  they  parted. 

When  Diana  reached  the  street  she  crossed  at  once 
to  the  cab  from  which  Ogden  Fenn  had  been  watching 
for  her,  and  from  which  he  had  already  thrust  a  foot 
and  leg  with  the  gallant  intention  of  descending  to 
help  her  in. 

"Don't  get  out,"  she  said  impulsively,  "please." 


232  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

He  withdrew  the  tentative  foot.  She  spoke  to  him 
in  a  low  voice  so  that  the  driver  could  not  hear. 

"If  you  ever  want  to  see  me  again,  for  God's  sake 
don't  try  to  say  anything  to  me  now.  Just  go  away, 
go  away,  go  away!" 

"But  when  I— Diana " 

"Oh,  I'll  write,  telephone,  anything.  I  don't  want 
to  talk  to  you  now." 

Her  face  was  white  and  menacing.  It  was  Fenn's 
first  experience  of  a  Diana  in  any  way  different  from 
the  tender  and  .confiding  Diana  whom  he  loved  with  all 
his  heart  and  soul.  He  gave  the  driver  an  address, 
and  drove  off  badly  frightened. 

Her  husband's  words  had  gone  very  deep.  But  she 
knew  without  being  told  that  she  had  not  been  a  good 
wife  to  him.  And  if  she  was  to  succeed  with  her  sec- 
ond husband  where  she  had  failed  with  the  first,  she 
wished  it  to  be  the  result  of  her  own  initiative,  and  not 
of  following  someone  else's  advice.  Diana,  indeed, 
had  the  intention  of  surprising  the  world  by  showing 
the  world  what  a  model  wife  she  could  be  once  she 
made  up  her  mind  to  it.  She  had  learned  a  lesson. 
Given  a  fresh  start,  she  felt  competent  to  profit  by  it. 
She  would  master  her  new  husband's  life  in  every  de- 
tail and  make  it  hers.  Nor  would  she,  even  in  the 
almost  inconceivable  event  of  her  love  toward  him 
cooling,  ever,  ever,  fail  him.  Now,  ordinarily,  if 
Diana  had  married  Fenn,  and  then  cooled  toward  him 
she  wolild  undoubtedly  have  failed  him  as  outrageously 
and  with  as  little  show  of  justice  as  she  had  failed 
Manners.  But  the  circumstances  were  not  ordinary. 
She  was  going  to  marry  Fenn  in  the  teeth  of  general 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  233 

disapproval  and  particular  opposition.  And  her  de- 
termination to  stick  to  him  now  and  hereafter  at  all 
costs  was  no  half-baked  impulse;  but  a  strongly  and 
bravely  calculated  scheme  of  life.  It  is  probable  that 
Diana  felt  that  she  could  never  be  happy  until  she  had 
redeemed  herself  in  her  own  eyes.  Furthermore,  it 
was  as  if  she  was  fighting  with  her  back  to  the  wall. 
She  would  never  put  anybody  in  the  position  of  saying, 
"I  told  you  so."  Far  rather  she  would  die  an  assort- 
ment of  hideous  deaths. 

She  wished  that  Frank  hadn't  touched  on  her  wifely 
conduct  toward  Fenn.  Nobody  ought  to  touch  on 
anything  so  private.  Why  not  wish  her  good  luck, 
merely,  and  be  done  with  it?  It  is  always  easier  to 
do  right  when  you  make  the  decision  for  yourself  than 
when  you  are  goaded  into  it  by  advice  and  entreaty. 
For  one  thing  it  doesn't  happen  so  often. 

But  it  was  not  resentment  that  had  given  Diana  the 
irresistible  wish  to  be  alone.  The  ways  and  times  that 
had  once  been  so  dear  had  suddenly  flooded  her  mem- 
ory with  grief  and  tenderness.  Fenn  had  nothing  to 
do  with  all  that.  It  would  hurt  him  to  learn  what 
grieved  her  so.  He  must  not.  She  must  get  the 
better  of  those  memories,  of  this  sorrow,  of  this  re- 
morse, before  she  talked  with  him.  She  had  dismissed 
him  as  well  as  she  could,  irritably  and  hysterically; 
but  anything  was  better  than  a  breakdown.  She  could 
explain.  She  would  say  that  it  hadn't  been  easy  to 
thank  her  husband  or  say  good-by  to  him  and  that  she 
had  felt  that  she  simply  must  be  alone  for  a  while. 
Ogden  would  surely  understand. 

Diana  turned  into  the  Avenue  and  walked  up,  briskly 


234  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

and  with  determination,  her  head  high.  Nobody 
would  have  picked  her  for  a  woman  who  within  five 
minutes  had  suffered  the  tortures  of  the  damned. 
Color  came  into  her  cheeks,  and  the  tragic  mood 
passed.  She  felt  a  little  "let-down,"  but  not  much. 
The  high  contention  and  the  combat  of  wills  were  all 
over.  Nobody  would  oppose  her  any  more.  She  had 
won  her  fight.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but  wait. 
In  order  to  become  Mrs.  Ogden  Fenn  she  had  only  to 
wait.  .Her  cake  had  been  promised  to  her  and  by-and- 
by  she  would  be  at  liberty  to  eat  it. 

Of  course,  as  in  all  such  passions,  it  was  chiefly  the 
physical  Diana  that  was  so  attracted  to  Fenn.  She 
herself  was  ignorant  of  this  basic  fact.  There  had 
been  moments  during  this  affair  when  she  had  longed 
to  give  and  to  be  taken;  but  those  moments  had  been 
rarer  than  might  be  supposed.  As  she  walked  briskly 
up  the  Avenue,  trying  to  wipe  all  disagreeable  and 
poignant  thoughts  from  her  brain,  it  occurred  to  her 
that  perhaps  she  was  never  going  to  be  happy.  She 
had  a  prophetic  moment.  She  visualized  herself  as 
already  married  to  Fenn  and  settled  down  somewhere. 
And  the  woman  that  she  visualized  kept  saying: 
"Well,  is  this  all?  Why  don't  you  do  something  to 
make  me  blissfully  happy?  We  had  that  same  chintz 
once  in  our  dining-room  at  Newport." 

"I  wonder,"  she  thought  dismally,  "if  it's  only  op- 
position and  knowing  that  I  mustn't  have  them  that 
makes  me  want  things?" 

At  that  moment  she  did  not  love  Fenn,  or  rather  her 
love  for  him  was  in  a  state  of  coma.  The  least  trifle 
of  course  would  have  waked  it,  but  it  is  necessary  to 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  235 

record  that  during  the  time  which  it  took  her  to  walk 
the  length  of  a  city  block  her  love  for  him  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  did  not  exist.  And  of  that  fact  she  was 
distinctly  conscious. 

Life-long  opposition  might  have  made  Diana  capa- 
ble of  a  life-long  love.  She  was  one  of  those  people 
who  are  their  very  best  in  the  defense  of  others.  But 
where  others  praised,  too,  she  soon  tired  of  praising, 
and  with  those  ways  along  which  she  met  no  opposition 
she  was  soon  bored. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

A  FEW  days  passed  and  among  the  Manners's  friends 
and  acquaintances  it  began  to  be  rumored  that  a  di- 
vorce was  impending.  A  number  of  women  who 
should  have  known  better  spoke  to  Diana  about  it. 
They*  had  heard  rumors.  Of  ^course  it  wasn't  true. 
Nothing  quite  so  horrid  ever  was  true?  but  they  thought 
it  their  duty  to  tell  her  what  was  said.  And 
Diana's  punishment  began.  She  had  not  supposed 
that  getting  a  divorce  would  make  her  feel  so  conspicu- 
ous and  self-conscious.  She  had  never  had  those 
feelings  before  and  they  were  not  pleasant.  The  ex- 
perience made  her  feel  far  more  guilty  of  wrong  doing 
than  anything  her  husband  had  ever  said  to  her.  It 
was  a  nasty  experience.  She  couldn't  see  much  of 
Fenn  for  fear  of  talk ;  and  more  than  once  she  wished 
that  her  elopement  with  him  had  not  proved  abortive. 
Diana's  mother  made  no  comments,  but  she  was  im- 
mensely hostile.  Diana  felt  this  and  it  hurt  her. 
"Right  or  wrong,"  she  thought,  "Mamma  ought  to  be 
on  my  side."  One  day  she  received  a  note  from  Mary 
Hastings, 

"DEAR  Di: 

I  heard  that  you  were  getting  a  divorce,  and  Frank 
tells  me  it's  true.  This  is  bad  news;  but  I  suppose 
your  mind  has  been  long  made  up  and  that  you  are  not 

236 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  237 

to  be  dissuaded.  I  never  asked  a  favor  of  you.  I  do 
now.  I  want  you  to  tell  me  where  and  when  I  can  see 
you  and  to  promise  that  you  will  listen  to  what  I  have 
to  tell  you.  It  is  something  that  you  ought  to  know. 
Could  you  lunch  with  me  to-morro<w?  I  am  very  un- 
happy about  this.  I  love  you  both  so  much. 

MARY." 

Interfering  with  other  people's  affairs,  even  with 
those  of  her  most  intimate  friends,  was  so  unlike  Mary 
Hastings  that  Diana  actually  went  to  lunch  with  her 
on  the  following  day.  Afterward  they  had  coffee 
under  the  lovely  apple-tree  that  Frank  Manners  had 
painted  and  had  their  talk. 

"Diana,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings,  smiling  in  a  dis- 
arming way,  "I  am  not  going  to  argue  with  you.  I 
couldn't  if  I  tried.  I  know  Mr.  Fenn.  He  came  here 
and  we  talked  about  you.  I  believe  I  tried  argument, 
it  was  a  failure." 

"He  never  told  me." 

"That's  in  his  favor,  he  promised  that  he  wouldn't." 

"He  came  to  see  the  porcelains." 

"So  he  thought,  and  so  you  thought.  He  came  as 
a  matter  of  fact  to  be  talked  to  and  scolded.  But  that's 
ancient  history.  He  is  not  your  husband  yet,  and 
Frank  still  is.  I  have  wanted  to  tell  you  something 
about  Frank  and  me.  He  is  still  your  husband  and  so 
you  ought  to  know.  I  have  always  been  very  much  in 
love  with  him." 

Diana  looked  both  surprised  and.  entertained. 
"You,  Mary?  Why  I  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing. 
And  is  that  why  you've  always  been  so  nice  to  me?" 


238  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"If  I've  been  nice  to  you,  it's  been  for  your  own 
sake.  Are  we  going  to  be  frank  with  each  other, 
Diana?  What  do  people  say  about  my  marriage  with 
Hastings?" 

"That  your  family  bullied  you  into  it.'* 

"Is  that  what  you  think?" 

Diana  nodded  briskly. 

"And  Frank?" 

Again  Diana  nodded. 

"They  influenced  me  as  much  as  they  could,"  said 
Mrs.  Hastings,  "and  I  married  him.  But  that  is  not 
the  point.  The  point  is  that  I  have  been  a  good  wife 
to  him.  I  had  no  heart  to  give  him,  but  whatever  it 
was  possible  to  give  I  have  given  always.  And  if  I 
have  succeeded  in  what  I  set  out  to  do  it  has  been  for 
this  reason:  I  have  been  able  to  give  in  such  a  way  that 
he  has  not  been  ashamed  to  take.  Oh,  I  know,"  she 
excused  herself,  "I  am  a  very  humble  person,  not  at 
all  romantic.  I  should  like  to  be  a  free-thinker,  and 
talk  about  the  inalienable  right  of  my  soul  to  make 
everybody  about  me  miserable.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  far  from  being  a  free-thinker,  it  is  with  the  great- 
est difficulty  that  I  manage  to  think  about  abstract 
things  at  all.  And  I  think,"  she  concluded,  "that  I 
have  been  happier  than  if  I  had  made  Hastings  misera- 
ble and  had  a  love  affair  and  run  off  with  an  affinity." 

"But  what  about  Frank?"  Diana's  interest  in  Mary 
Hastings's  totally  unexpected  revelation  would  not  be 
denied.  "Does  he  ...  ?" 

"I  think  he  has  always  known  in  his  heart.  But  I 
never  told  him,  and  naturally  he  never  asked.  Even," 
she  said,  her  eyes  steadily  on  Diana's,  "even  if  he  had 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  239 

felt  the  same  about  me,  he  never  would  have  said  any- 
thing. He  couldn't  very  well.  ...  I  mean  you  and  I 
just  know  that  he  could  never  do  a  thing  like  that.  It 
would  have  hurt  you  so,  and  Hastings.  And  it  would 
have  been  entirely  against  his  code  of  honor.  That's 
one  of  the  things  that  hurts  him  so  about  you.  He 
feels  that  a  man  who  could  do  what  poor  Mr.  Fenn  has 
done  is  not  the  kind  of  man  that  a  good  woman  ought 
to  marry." 

Diana  put  her  coffee  cup  on  the  table  and  started  to 
rise. 

"Please — please  don't  be  offended,"  said  Mrs.  Hast- 
ings. "I  didn't  mean  to  break  the  rules.  I  only 
wanted  to  tell  you  that  it  is  possible  to  love  a  man,  and 
do  without  him,  and  belong  to  a  man  you  don't  love, 
and  at  the  same  time  get  enough  out  of  life  to  make 
life  a  thousand  times  worth  living.  Oh,  it  hasn't  been 
a  bit  easy ;  and  the  first  of  it  was  terribly,  terribly  hard. 
If  anybody  had  asked  me  in  those  first  years  I'd  have 
answered  that  I  was  the  most  wretched,  soiled,  de- 
graded creature  on  God's  earth.  But  I  wasn't,  Diana, 
not  a  bit  of  it." 

"You  forget,  Mary,  that  you  are  one  woman  in  ten 
million,  and  everybody  says  so." 

Mary  Hastings  smiled.  It  pleased  her  immensely 
to  be  told  things  like  that,  though  she  was  in  truth  very 
humble  and  did  not  believe  them.  She  excused  her- 
self. 

"There  was  nothing  else  that  I  could  try.  I  have  no 
mind,  no  resources.  So  I  just  tried  to  make  things 
as  pleasant  as  I  could  for  the  man  I  had  to  live  with. 
I  could  always  tell  when  he  was  pleased ;  and  somehow 


240  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

in  time  the  knowledge  that  I  had  given  pleasure  gave 
me  pleasure.  Nothing  can  stop  me  now,"  she  cried 
triumphantly.  "I'm  headed  straight  for  a  happy  old 
age.  I'm  even  very  sure  that  I  shall  wrinkle  pleas- 
antly. Always,  my  dear,  I  go  to  sleep  smiling.  I've 
made  a  point  of  that  for  years." 

"But,"  Diana  objected,  "I  don't  see  where  Frank 
comes  in  ?" 

"Only  that  I  fell  in  love  with  him  soon  after  I  was 
married.  And  loving  him  made  the  things  I  had  to  do 
seem  beyond  anybody's  nerve  or  strength.  That's 
how  it  made  them  seem,  Diana.  But  really  it  was  the 
love  that  I  had  for  Frank  that  made  them  worth  do- 
ing. ...  So  many  women  we  know  have  done  what 
you  are  doing,  Diana.  Some  of  them  must  have  had 
even  better  reasons  than  you  have.  Are  any  of  them 

"  She  hesitated,  and  Diana  supplied  the  rest  of 

the  question: 

"Going  to  wrinkle  pleasantly  ?" 

"That's  fust  what  I  mean,  Diana.  Are  they?  What 
is  the  difference  between  marrying  a  man  you  don't 
love,  and  finding  that  you  no  longer  love  the  man  you 
are  married  to?  Diana,  dear,  nobody  in  this  world 
has  such  a  good  chance  as  you  have  to — wrinkle  pleas- 
antly. Oh,  I  wouldn't  stop  loving  Mr.  Fenn.  I 
wouldn't  dream  of  doing  that.  But  I'd  tell  him  that 
I'd  stopped,  and  I'd  tell  Frank,  and  everybody  that 
cares  about  you  the  way  we  all  do ;  and  I'd  be  all  the 
things  to  Frank  that  you  used  to  be  when  you  wanted 
to  be  them.  It  was  no  credit  when  you  wanted  to  be 
them ;  but  there  would  come  to  you  now  after  a  while 
an  inner  glow  of  righteousness,  of  glorified  self-satis- 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  241 

faction,  of  duty  done,  that  would  soon  turn  all  your 
mountains  into  molehills.  If  only  I  were  a  bishop, 
full  of  eloquence!  If  only  I  could  make  you  see 
the  problems  of  life  as  I  see  them.  They  are  so 
childishly  simple  and  easy;  the  way  out  of  every  diffi- 
culty is  so  straight  and  practical.  The  rewards  are 
so  sure.  ..." 

Mary  Hastings  had  much  more  to  say  now  that  she 
had  Diana  listening  to  her,  though  ever  so  unwillingly. 
She  leaned  forward  impulsively,  her  beautiful,  tranquil 
face  all  aglow  with  beatitude  and  resting  her  ringers 
lightly  on  Diana's  knee,  she  said:  "Diana,  darling — 
do  right." 

But  Diana's  face  hardened. 

"Mary,"  she  said,  "I  have  never  been  a  good  wife 
to  Frank;  he  says  so  himself.  He  told  me  so  the  last 
time  I  saw  him.  If  I  wasn't  able  to  be  a  good  wife  to 
him  when  I  loved  him,  there's  no  use  trying  to  be  now ; 
the  time  is  past,  and  there  has  been  too  much  bitter- 
ness. He  has  said  things  that  I  can't  forget.  That 
they  happened  to  be  true  doesn't  make  it  any  better. 
.  .  .  You  tell  me  that  all  the  while  you  were  in  love 
with  Frank  you  were  able  to  give  yourself  to  your 
husband  and  to  give  yourself  cheerfully,  and  my  an- 
swer to  that  is  simply  that  you  never  were  in  love  with 
Frank,  or  anybody  else.  You  don't  know  what  love 
is." 

Mary  Hastings  recognized  defeat  and  accepted  it. 
But  Diana,  usually  so  reticent,  continued  her  self-justi- 
fication. 

"I  have  taken  my  failures  to  heart,"  she  exclaimed, 
"all  of  them.  Don't  think  that  I  haven't.  And  when 


242  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

I  marry  the  man  I  love  it  will  be  with  my  eyes  open. 
I  shall  never  make  those  mistakes  again." 

"Oh,  Diana,  if  we  could  only  be  sure  that  once  you 
are  married  to  Mr.  Fenn  you  won't  fall  in  love  with 
somebody  else." 

"No  fear,"  said  Diana,  "or  if  I  do  he  will  never 
know  it.  You  may  despise  me,  Mary;  I  think  you 
do.  I  don't  blame  you  a  bit.  Frank  does.  But  I 
have  changed.  I  am  different.  I  am  going  to  have 
another  chance,  and  this  time  I  am  going  to  make  good. 
If  I  don't,"  there  was  a  kind  of  defiant  fierceness  in 
her  voice,  "I'll  kill  myself." 

But  Diana's  sudden  excitement  kindled  none  in 
the  beautiful  and  tranquil  Mrs.  Hastings. 

"You  lucky  person,"  she  said,  "to  have  two 
chances!"  There  was  no  malice  in  what  Mrs.  Has- 
tings said;  no  thought  back  of  the  thought.  She 
actually  did  think  a  person  was  wonderfully  lucky  to 
be  given  two  chances,  more  especially  as  she  herself  had 
never  had  any.  Many  people  thought  that  Mrs.  Has- 
tings was  of  a  cold  and  unemotional  temperament. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  she  was  not;  but  she  was  well-bred 
and  she  was  good.  Even  Diana,  who  knew  her 
intimately,  felt  that  Mrs.  Hastings  could  never  have 
more  than  a  sentimental  fancy  for  a  man,  and  that  Mrs. 
Hastings  longed  to  belong  to  Frank  just  as  ardently  as 
she  longed  to  belong  to  Fenn  was  a  proposition  which 
Diana  could  never  have  been  made  to  accept. 

"When  a  woman,"  she  said,  "feels  the  way  i  do 
about  a  man,  she  does  things.  She  has  to.  That's 
the  way  women  are  made.  And  if  you  never  felt  the 
same  way,  it  isn't  fair  to  judge  harshly." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  243 

"But  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings,  "I  know  ex- 
actly how  you  feel." 

"You  can't.  Because  the  other  person — Frank — 
didn't  feel  the  same  way,  or  if  he  did,  and  I  don't  sup- 
pose he  did,  because  I  think  he  always  truly  cared  for 
me,  he  never  told  you — so  what  you  had  to  do  was 
only  horrible  to  you.  It  wasn't  horrible  to  some  one 
you  loved  with  all  your  heart  and  soul.  If  Frank  had 
loved  you  the  way  you  loved  him  you  couldn't  have 
gone  on  ...  you  couldn't !" 

"This  world  is  full  of  women  who  can't  and  don't, 
Diana.  But  I  think  we'd  both  be  enormously  sur- 
prised to  find  how  many  women  there  are  who  can 
and  do.  ...  I've  tried  to  show  you  the  beauties  of 
renunciation.  And  of  course  I  have  failed.  I  wish 
I  hadn't.  I  wish  you  didn't  have  to  hurt  Frank  so." 

"If  you  love  him,  Mary,"  said  Diana,  "how  can 
you  want  me  or  any  woman  to  be  his  wife?  I  can't 
understand  that.  If  I  couldn't  have  the  man  I  wanted 
I'd  hate  to  see  anybody  else  have  him." 

"It's  just  as  I  supposed,"  said  Mrs.  Hastings,  with 
mischief  in  her  smile,  "when  you  told  me  that  I  didn't 
know  what  love  was.  You  meant  that  you  didn't 
know." 

Diana  rose  to  her  feet,  and  stood  for  a  few  moments 
looking  into  the  apple-tree  which  her  husband  had 
painted. 

"Mary,"  she  said,  "people  say  that  Frank  might  have 
been  a  really  great  painter  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me.  I 
know  they  say  that.  I've  always  thought  it.  Perhaps 
that's  why  I  stopped  loving  him.  We  always  stop  lov- 
ing the  things  we  injure  most.  Isn't  that  true?  .  .  . 


244  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

Perhaps  when  he's  rid  of  me  he'll  be  great.  And  that 
will  be  a  good  thing.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  know  you  are  all 
against  me.  You  all  hope  it  will  turn  out  badly,  and 
that  I'll  be  unhappy.  And  I  know  you  don't  any  of 
you  see  the  things  in  Ogden  that  I  see.  You  don't 
even  think  he's  attractive.  And  that  only  makes  me 
love  him  the  more.  Oh,  I  should  think  now  that  you 
all  know  that  I  must  go  on  with  this  that  you'd  want 
to  help  me  and  make  it  a  success.  I  think  even  Frank 
hopes  that  I'll  be  unhappy  .  .  ."  She  broke  off 
abruptly,  and  held  out  her  hand. 

"Nobody  hopes  you'll  be  unhappy,  Diana,"  said 
Mrs.  Hastings.  "We're  afraid.  That's  all.  You  see 
a  woman  can  only  give  all  that  she  has  to  give  once. 
It's  the  same  with  a  man.  That  is  what  makes  the 
step  you  are  taking  seem  so  desperate.  Of  course 
you're  happy  now.  ..." 

"Happy !"  exclaimed  Diana.  "How  can  I  be  happy 
when  I  am  making  everybody  wretched,  and  being 
disapproved  of  and  read  lectures?  But  I  am  going  to 
be  happy.  I  will  be." 

When  Diana  had  gone,  Mary  Hastings  telephoned 
at  once  to  Mrs.  Langham.  It  was  apparent  that  Mrs. 
Langham  had  been  expecting  the  call. 

"Could  you  do  anything  with  her?"  she  asked. 

"I  made  a  complete  failure,  Mrs.  Langham.  I'm 
awfully  sorry.  I  did  really  think  I  could  do  some 
good;  but  I  only  succeeded  in  making  her  feel  that 
everybody  is  against  her  and  hopes  she'll  be  unhappy. 
Have  you  said  nothing  to  her  ?" 

"Not  a  word,"  said  Mrs.  Langham.     "She  knows 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  245 

that  I  disapprove;  and  we  have  tacitly  agreed  not  to 
discuss  the  matter." 

"But  you  won't  let  her  go  through  with  this  with- 
out making  one  effort  to  save  her  ?  Please  don't.  She 
might  listen  to  you.  She  admires  you  more  than  she 
admires  anyone;  and  the  fact  that  you  haven't  said 
anything  ought  to  count.  It  will  seem  so  much  more 
momentous  when  you  do.  Frank  thinks  that  you 
ought  to  talk  to  her.  But  he  won't  ask  you  to  himself. 
He  has  an  idea  that  Diana  isn't  as  happy  and  care- 
free as  she  expected  to  be,  that  she's  in  a  fine  state  of 
balance  and  that  just  the  right  word  from  the  right 
person  might  make  her  tip  the  right  way.  You  will 
try,  won't  you  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "I'll  try." 

"May  I  tell  Frank  that  you  are  going  to  talk  to  her? 
He  was  so  despondent  when  I  saw  him.  Even  if  you 
can't  change  her,  it  would  always  be  easier  for  Frank 
if  he  knew  that  you  had  tried." 

Mary  Hastings  never  knew  how  much  her  words 
had  affected  Diana.  Diana  had  been  outwardly  de- 
fiant and  illogical.  But  deep  in  her  mind  grave  doubts 
had  begun  to  express  themselves  humbly  and  with 
logic.  Could  she  give  up  Fenn?  Could  she  not  give 
him  up?  Those  who  had  a  right  to  talk  to  her  were 
all  against  her.  Even  the  great  love  that  she  had  for 
Fenn  made  her  no  friends  at  court.  The  more  she 
loved  him,  the  more  beautiful  the  renunciation  would 
be.  The  voice  that  was  speaking  deep  in  her  mind 
kept  saying:  "This  love  will  pass,  as  your  other  loves 
have  passed.  When  that  happens  you  would  give  the 
world  to  undo  what  by  that  time  you  will  have  done. 


246  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

You  will  tire  of  Fenn.  He  will  bore  you  one  of  these 
days.  And  the  more  you  dwell  on  the  things  that  you 
have  given  up  for  his  sake  the  less  you  will  like  him. 
Would  a  real  man  have  made  love  to  you  behind  a  kind 
and  loving  husband's  back?  The  kind  of  man  you 
really  like  is  the  kind  of  man  that  men  like.  That 
kind  of  man  doesn't  do  the  kind  of  thing  that  Fenn 
has  done.  He  is  a  woman's  man." 

And  the  old  nursery  rime  began  to  run  in  her  head, 
and  she  couldn't  mistake  the  boy  who  plays  the  chief 
part  for  anyone  but  Ogden  Fenn;  and  that  angered 
her,  because  she  loved  Fenn,  and  was  loyal  to  him,  and 
he  was  a  hero  to  her. 

"Georgia  Porgie,  pudding  and  pie, 
Kissed  the  girls  and  made  them  cry, 
When  the  boys  came  out  to  play, 
Georgie  Porgie  ran  away." 

Georgie  Porgie  did  look  like  Fenn.  There  was 
no  question  about  that,  or  else  it  was  Fenn  who  looked 
like  Georgie  Porgie.  The  chief  resemblance  was  be- 
tween the  mouths.  Both  had  fine  teeth,  and  rather 
full,  flexible,  shining  lips. 

She  picked  up  a  roving  taxi  at  Fifty-ninth  Street 
and  drove  to  the  Pennsylvania  Station.  She  just  made 
her  train.  She  had  to  scamper  to  make  it,  and  the 
current  of  her  thoughts  changed.  She  began  very 
seriously  to  consider  the  possibility  of  dropping  the 
divorce  proceedings,  confessing  her  faults  and  asking 
her  husband  to  forgive  her  and  take  her  back.  A 
thousand  things  that  had  seemed  difficult,  viewed 
from  this  new  angle,  became  easy.  She  had  only  to 
surrender  and  all  the  bridges  would  be  crossed  for 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  247 

her.  Frank  would  work  with  renewed  enthusiasm; 
they  could  take  up  together  the  somewhat  neglected 
matter  of  Tarn's  education.  Mrs.  Langham,  Mary 
Hastings,  Peter,  all  their  friends  would  be  so  glad. 
She  could  think  of  having  good  times  again,  instead  of 
preparing  to  give  them  all  up.  There  would  be  no 
break-up  of  their  household,  no  horrible  sorting  out 
of  possessions.  Oh,  she  wanted  to  marry  Fenn,  and 
for  his  sake  she  was  ready  to  call  the  world  well  lost ; 
but  did  the  man  for  one  moment  realize  what  a  horri- 
ble nuisance  it  all  was? 

She  reached  home  in  a  state  of  indecision.  On  the 
hall  table  was  a  note  from  Fenn.  She  carried  it  up  to 
her  room  and  laid  it  unopened  on  her  dressing-table. 
She  did  not  wish  to  listen  to  him  now.  She  was  going 
to  decide  something.  She  felt  sure  of  that.  When 
she  had  decided  she  would  read  what  her  lover  had 
to  say.  Suppose  she  decided  against  him?  She 
ought  to.  She  knew  that.  She  was  fond  of  her  hus- 
band, and  he  had  never  wronged  her.  To  throw  him 
over  merely  because  she  was  in  love  was  criminal. 
She  knew  that.  To  throw  Fenn  over  would  not  be 
criminal;  and  it  would  hurt  her  as  much  as  it  could 
hurt  him.  It  was  the  kind  of  hurting  which  they  both 
deserved. 

While  she  dressed  for  dinner  she  had  Tarn  to  visit 
with  her.  The  day  had  been  hot,  and  Tarn's  mind  had 
been  running  on  sea-bathing.  She  had  her  parent's 
love  for  salt  water. 

"Mumsey,"  she  asked,  "are  we  going  to  Newport; 
because  it's  getting  to  be  so  hot?  Even  Grandma 
says  so." 


248  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"It  isn't  summer  yet,"  said  Diana,  "and  honestly 
we  haven't  decided.  We  don't  know  just  what  we 
are  going  to  do." 

She  had  a  wild  impulse  to  speak  her  mind  out  to 
her  child;  and  of  course  resisted  it.  She  might  have 
said: 

"Tarn,  I'm  tired  of  father,  and  I  am  going  to  live 
with  Mr.  Fenn.  Mr.  Fenn  isn't  rich  and  I'll  have  to 
live  in  the  city  most  of  the  time  where  his  business  is. 
Of  course,  you'ft  live  with  us ;  because  a  little  daughter 
needs  her  mumsey  and  all  that,  and  then  in  a  year  or 
two  you'll  be  old  enough  to  go  to  school.  But  nothing 
will  be  quite  the  same.  You  see,  wherever  father 
goes  his  work  is  with  him;  but  Mr.  Fenn  isn't  so 
lucky.  If  he  didn't  stay  in  the  city  most  of  the  time 
he  wouldn't  have  any  money  at  all.  Of  course,  I'm 
not  going  to  be  married  to  him  till  next  winter,  and 
perhaps  I  shall  take  you  to  Newport  for  a  while ;  some 
where,  anyway,  where  there's  bathing.  .  ."  and  she 
might  have  said  a  good  deal  more. 

"Am  I  ever  going  to  be  able  to  justify  myself  in  the 
eyes  of  this  child?"  thought  Diana.  "Yes,  when  she 
knows  what  love  is.  Then  she  will  understand  and 
sympathize.  But  in  the  meanwhile  I  can't  even  try 
to  explain  or  justify  myself.  Oh,  the  questions  she 
will  ask  at  first !  And  perhaps  it  won't  only  be  at  first. 
She  is  very  tenacious.  And  if  Ogden  and  I  don't  make 
her  happy  all  the  time,  she  will  remember  how  happy 
her  father  could  always  make  her.  And  then  Ogden 
and  I  will  have  our  punishment  living  in  the  same 
house  with  us." 

"Tarn,"  said  Diana,  "come  here." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  249 

They  made  a  charming  picture  in  the  mirror  over 
the  dressing-table;  but  neither  of  them  saw  it.  Diana 
looked  Tarn  very  earnestly  in  the  eyes  and  Tam  re- 
turned the  look. 

"Which  do  you  love  better,  Father  or  Mother?" 

Tam  would  not  answer.  She  flung  her  arms  around 
Diana  and  buried  her  face  against  her. 

"She  loves  her  father  more,"  thought  Diana,  "and 
she  won't  hurt  my  feelings  by  saying  so,  the  darling. 
And  it  does  hurt  my  feelings." 

"But  you  love  your  Mumsey  a  whole  lot,  don't 
you?" 

The  pressure  of  the  little  arms  increased  and  the 
face  made  a  bowing  motion.  Diana  could  feel  the 
little  button  of  a  nose  pressing  into  her  breast.  .  . 
How,  when  he  was  tired  and  discouraged,  the  child's 
father  had  loved  to  lay  his  head  just  there !  How  he 
would  love  to  now,  poor  fellow !  To  have  and  to  hold 
...  to  love  and  obey.  .  .  till  death  .  .  . 

"You're  hurting  Mums." 

"I  'spec  I  was  just  loving  you  too  much." 

"Now  this  is  good-night,  and  then  run  tell  Grand- 
ma good-night  and  tell  her  I'll  be  down  in  a  few 
minutes." 

"Is  Fahzer  coming?" 

"Not  to-night." 

"When?" 

"He'll  be  coming  out  to  see  you  soon,  I  expect. 
Now  scamper." 

Diana  and  her  mother  dined  briefly,  and  talked  on 
a  variety  of  topics,  in  which  neither  of  them  was  very 


250  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

much  interested  at  the  moment.  Shortly  after  dinner 
Diana  began  to  think  about  Fenn's  note  and  wonder 
what  was  in  it.  Just  love  and  admiration  of  course, 
and  longing ;  but  she  thought  that  he  had  a  very  felici- 
tous and  varied  gift  for  saying  such  things.  She  was 
sure  that  he  thought  more  about  her  soul  than  her 
body.  And  for  some  unknown  reason,  since  both  were 
part  of  her  and  she  was  responsible  for  neither,  this 
thought  had  an  immense  power  of  flattery. 

She  sat  in  a  corner  of  the  big  sofa  with  her  little  feet 
tucked  under  her.  She  was  just  being  polite.  She 
had  nothing  to  say  to  her  mother.  Her  mother  was 
against  her.  Mrs.  Langham  busied  herself  with  a 
piece  of  knitting ;  and  watched  Diana  covertly.  Diana 
suppressed  a  yawn,  and  Mrs.  Langham  put  her  knit- 
ting down. 

"My  dear  child,"  she  said,  "I  suppose  you  are  sick 
to  death  of  being  talked  to,  and  advised ;  but  after  all 
I'm  your  mother." 

"And  I've  counted  on  you,"  said  Diana,  "to  go 
through  to  the  bitter  end  without  saying  a  word. 
Must  you?  I  know  you  hate  it.  I  know  you  think 
it's  wicked  and  I  know  I'm  not  going  to  change.  So 
what  is  the  use  ?" 

"It's  because  you  have  a  daughter  of  your  own," 
said  Mrs.  Langham.  "Very  likely  she  will  turn  on 
you  one  of  these  days,  and  say  what  is  the  use?  And 
if  you  haven't  listened  to  me,  you'll  have  no  right  to 
make  her  listen  to  you,  and  you'll  be  sorry." 

"It  seems  that  I  am  going  to  be  sorry  for  every- 
thing," said  Diana  wearily.  "Everybody  says  so,  ex- 
cept Ogden  and  me.  We  think  there  is  such  a  thing 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  251 

as  a  love  that  can  make  up  to  a  woman  for  all  the 
things  she  is  bound  to  lose.  You're  not  going  to  argue 
and  plead,  are  you?" 

"I  won't  promise  not  to  argue.  That  is  an  old 
woman's  prerogative.  I  never  have  pleaded  with  you 
or  with  anyone  else.  I  sha'n't  begin  now.  You  feel 
somewhat  isolated,  don't  you,  Diana?  You  feel  as 
if  you  were  going  through  unprecedented  experience. 
You  might  even  feel  as  if  Fate  had  been  unjust  in 
singling  you  out  as  the  one  woman  who  through  a 
great  passion  is  doomed  to  make  her  family  and 
friends  wretched.  .  .  .  When,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
what  you  are  suffering  is  just  as  common  as  is  the  way 
in  which  you  are  seeking  relief.  You  are  not  unique. 
Most  married  women  betray  their  husbands  either  in 
word  or  in  deed  or  in  thought.  And  each  married 
woman  thinks  that  her  particular  excuse  for  doing  so 
is  the  only  really  sacred  and  transcendental  passion 
since  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  The  whole  world  is 
seething  with  loves  like  yours  and  Fenn's.  Yours  is 
just  a  drop  in  the  great  bucket,  neither  more  worthy, 
nor  less.  Less,  because  it  was  more  of  your  seeking 
than  the  man's." 

"It's  all  very  well  to  theorize,"  said  Diana  iron- 
ically, "but  how  can  you  know?  You  of  all  people? 
You,  the  shyest  and  most  conventional  person  in  the 
world.  You  talk  as  if  you'd  been  a  famous  flirt." 

"I  was  in  my  heart,"  said  Mrs.  Langham;  "all 
women  are.  But  I  was  not  theorizing.  I  have  had 
my  little  tragedy,  too." 

"You!"  exclaimed  Diana.  She  was  shocked,  hor- 
rified, skeptical,  hopeful,  almost  delighted.  She  had 


252  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

never  felt  so  close  to  her  mother.  Mrs.  Langham 
laughed,  blushed  a  little  and  bit  her  lip. 

"Yes,"  she  said  simply,  "I  had  my  eternal  passion, 
just  as  you  are  having  yours.  Perhaps  it  was  even 
more  of  an  eternal  passion  than  yours;  for  yours  is 
comparatively  young  still,  and  mine,  oh,  mine  lasted 
for  a  great  many  years." 

"Did  you  want  to  divorce  my  father?" 

"Of  course  I  wanted  to.  I  wanted  to  abandon  all 
you  children.  I  wanted  to  fly  to  the  ends  of  the  world, 
to  forget  the  world,  to  be  forgotten  by  it.  I  yearned 
if  anything  to  make  the  affair  as  scandalous  as  pos- 
sible. .  .  ." 

"Oh,  Mamma,"  said  Diana,  and  she  was  as  inter- 
ested as  a  child  might  be  in  a  thrilling  ghost-story, 
"What  did  you  do?" 

"The  affair,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "came  to  a  head 
one  Sunday,  when  everybody  had  gone  to  church  ex- 
cept me — your  father,  the  servants,  the  children — 
everybody.  I  lay  on  the  floor  in  my  room  and 
screamed  and  kicked  and  bit  ...  I  was  entirely  out 
of  my  head.  Quite  crazy.  It's  often  like  that.  Have 
you  had  any  fits  with  yours?" 

"But,  Mamma!"  Diana  waived  the  question  im- 
patiently .  .  . 

"Mine,"  said  Mrs.  Langham  imperturbably,  "was 
mixed  with  jealousy.  You  may  thank  your  stars  and 
garters  that  yours  isn't.  And  I  had  no  excuse.  The 
man  wasn't  really  in  love  with  the  person  I  was  jeal- 
ous of.  He  was  wonderfully  fond  of  her,  and  eventu- 
ally his  fondness  did  become  love — real  love — not 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  253 

fits — and  he  married  her;  but  at  the  time,  why  she 
wasn't  even  grown  up.  She  was  only  a  little  child." 

"But  how  could  he  care  for  her  and  for  you  too?" 

"I  never  said  that  he  cared  for  me.  It  was  I  who 
cared  for  him."  Again  she  laughed  and  blushed.  "I 
used  to  listen  and  watch,  and  long  and  hope.  And 
when  he  came  it  was  a  bright-blue  warm  day  and  when 
he  didn't  come  it  was  cold  and  dark.  My  dear,  this 
man  was  ten  years  younger  than  I !  Can  you  think  of 
anything  more  degrading,  more  ridiculous !  I  was 
thirty,  a  matron  with  children;  but  my  mind  worked 
like  that  of  a  silly  sentimental  school-girl.  .  .  .  Oh, 
but  it  hurt !  I  can  tell  you  it  hurt.  ..." 

"Mary  told  me  an  experience  she'd  had,"  said  Diana, 
"I  know  you  won't  repeat  it  to  anyone  so  it's  all 
right  for  me  to  tell  you.  And  the  man  didn't  love 
her,  either.  So  don't  you  see  my  case  is  different. 
If  Ogden  didn't  care  for  me,  or  didn't  even  know  that 
I  cared  for  him,  why  I  dare  say  I'd  have  to  struggle 
along  somehow  and  make  the  best  of  things.  But 
he  does  know,  and  he  does  care.  That's  the  point." 

"He  didn't  always  know,"  said  Mrs.  Langham. 
"He  needn't  have  known.  He  needn't  have  dared  to 
care." 

Diana's  eyes  fell  presently  before  the  challenging 
and  somewhat  contemptuous  look  in  her  mother's. 

"You  were  restless,"  said  Mrs.  'Langham,  "and 
you  sought  trouble  and  you  found  it.  ...  Well,  I 
didn't  expect  you  to  profit  by  my  experience.  But  I 
thought  it  right  for  you  to  know  that  your  mother  had 
suffered  as  you  are  suffering." 

Diana  rose. 


254  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"Thank  you  for  telling  me,  Mamma.  I  don't  sup- 
pose any  two  cases  are  exactly  alike,  are  they  ?  Would 
you  like  me  to  say  that  I  think  I'm  pretty  rotten; 
because  I  do  .  .  ." 

"You  have  only  to  do  as  a  well-bred  woman  should," 
said  Mrs.  Langham,  "and  though  your  love  for  Ogden 
Fenn  may  never  die,  the  knowledge  that  you  have 
been  just  and  high-minded  as  a  gentlewoman  should 
be  will  kill  all  the  suffering.  I  know  it." 

Mrs.  Langham  had  also  risen. 

"You  were  just  ten  when  I  fell  in  love,"  she  said. 
"That  was  a  long  time  ago." 

"Twenty  years,"  acknowledged  Diana.  "That's  just 
how  old  I  was  when  Frank  says  he  fell  in  love 
with  me,  and  made  up  his  mind  that  he  was  going  to 
marry  me  when  I  grew  up." 

"It's  curious,  isn't  it,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "to  think 
that  I  was  ever  jealous  of  you.  But  I  was.  I  didn't 
get  over  it  till  you  were  nearly  grown.  Did  I  ever 
show  it?" 

"Jealous  of  me,  Mamma?  I  don't  know  what  you 
mean." 

"Your  father,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "loved  youth. 
He  loved  to  have  the  younger  men  about  him;  they 
loved  to  come  to  our  house.  Frank  was  one  of  your 
father's  friends.  He  came  to  us  a  great  deal.  It 
seemed  it  was  on  your  account.  But  I  thought  .  .  . 
Oh,  what  a  fool  I  was,  that  it  was  on  my  account .  .  .  '* 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  Frank  was  the  man 
.  .  .  my  husband?  Diana  felt  chilled  and  shocked. 

"It  seems  horrible  to  you,  Diana.  You  think  of  me 
as  I  am  now,  an  old  grandmother.  But  I  was  only 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  255 

thirty  then.  Just  your  age.  Think  what  a  silly  child 
you  have  been,  dear,  and  make  allowances  ...  I  have 
never  gotten  over  loving  your  husband.  That  is  why 
I  can't  talk  to  you  without  prejudice.  ...  I  have 
never  let  it  hurt  anyone  but  me.  .  .  .  Frank  hasn't 
been  hurt;  your  father  was  not  hurt;  you  have  not 
been  hurt.  That  is  my  reward;  to  feel  that  I  have 
been  man  enough  to  see  that  my  own  failure  hurt 
nobody  but  me." 

"But,  Mamma  dear,  our  cases  are  not  at  all  the  same. 
What  else  could  you  do  if  the  man  didn't  know  or 
care." 

'I  could  have  given  him  a  chance  to  care,"  said  Mrs. 
Langham.  "Perhaps  I  could  have  made  him  care. 
Plainer  women  than  I  was  have  done  more  extraordi- 
nary things.  .  .  .  Diana,  my  dear  daughter,  what  you 
are  determined  on  is  as  foolish  as  it  is  undignified  and 
common.  It  will  bring  you  rto  happiness.  Perhaps 
Mr.  Fenn  will  be  happy,  who  knows?  Perhaps  poor 
Frank  will  find  some  sort  of  happiness.  Perhaps 
Tarn  will  not  be  as  much  hurt  as  I  think  she  will  be. 
I'm  too  old  to  matter.  But  I  tell  you  very  solemnly, 
Diana,  there  is  no  possible  happiness  for  you  unless 
you  do  right." 

"How  could  Frank  and  I  ever  live  together  again," 
said  Diana,  "after  this  dreadful  Mrs.  Herriot  .  .  .  ?" 

"I  think  Frank  would  have  to  sink  very  low  into 
the  very  deepest  slime  before  you  would  have  the  right 
to  reproach  him." 

"Of  course  I  have  no  right.  I  have  pushed  him 
under.  I  know  that.  But  these  things  don't  go  by 


256  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

right  or  by  wrong.     They  go  by  some  fastidious  in- 
stinct  .    ." 

"It  would  be  really  funny,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  "if 
you  were  to  find  out  some  day  that  Mrs.  Herriot 
had  once  been  one  of  Mr.  Fenn's  women  ..." 

"Mamma !    How  can  you !" 

"You  had  the  luck  to  marry  one  Galahad,"  said 
Mrs.  Langham  curtly.  "You  needn't  expect  to  find 
another  in  every  little  bounder  you  happen  to  fall  in 
love  with." 

Savage  words  leapt  to  Diana's  lips ;  but  she  bit  them 
back,  and  after  staring  at  her  mother  for  a  moment, 
as  if  at  some  stranger  who  had  been  rude  to  her,  she 
turned  and  left  the  room. 

She  thought  over  Fenn's  little  note.  All  he  said  was 
that  he  had  neither  friends  nor  family,  only  Diana; 
and  yet  the  world  seemed  full  of  wonderful  and 
friendly  people.  She  clasped  it  to  her  heart,  no  not 
to  hers.  It  was  not  hers,  nor  Tarn's,  nor  Frank's. 
It  had  never  been  Frank's.  Never!  Perish  the 
thought.  It  was  Fenn's.  All  of  her  was  Fenn's. 
There  had  been  no  other  man.  That  was  all  a  bad 
dream.  Love  had  made  her  all  over  from  top  to  toe. 
She  was  brand-new. 

And  she  lay  in  the  dark  with  the  note  clasped  tight. 
And  she  said:  "And  I  haven't  any  friends  either  or 
any  family  or  anything;  but  because  I  have  your  love 
the  world  seems  all  full  of  friendly  people." 

And  presently  the  poor  little  love-sick  fool  fell 
asleep  and  the  precious  note  slipped  from  her  breast 
to  the  bed  and  from  the  bed  to  the  floor. 

Sic  transit  gloria  mundi. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

OVER-STIMULATION  both  by  alcohol  and  tobacco,  in- 
somnia and  the  increasing  certainty  of  his  belief  that 
if  he  had  done  differently  matters  would  never  have 
come  into  this  terrible  pass,  literally  stripped  the  flesh 
from  Frank  Manners's  bones.  He  should  have  gone 
into  the  country  somewhere  with  a  trainer.  He  should 
have  given  up  all  forms  of  stimulation  and  exercised 
his  body  at  the  expense  of  his  imagination.  A  wise 
doctor  would  have  prescribed  just  this  for  him;  but 
he  did  not  consult  a  doctor,  and  merely  followed  along 
the  lines  of  the  least  resistance. 

This,  however,  kept  him  in  the  open  air  a  good  deal. 
He  fell  heir  to  the  racing  car  in  which  his  cousin  had 
so  nearly  driven  Ogden  Fenn  to  his  death,  and  forth- 
with developed  a  mania  for  distances  and  speed.  He 
had  felt  some  compunction  at  accepting  so  valuable 
a  present  even  from  Peter  Manners,  but  his  objections 
had  been  over-ridden.  And  when  he  found  that  at  first 
anyway,  driving  the  car  fast  gave  him  periods  of 
mental  relaxation  akin  to  sleep  he  was  delighted  with 
its  acquisition. 

You  may  not  care  whether  you  live  or  die,  but  you 
cannot  drive  fast  over  the  average  American  roads 
without  giving  considerable  attention  to  their  blind 
corners,  to  the  grafters  who  build  them,  to  the  lovely 
landscapes  which  continually  stream  past,  and  of 
course  to  "the  fool  in  the  other  car." 

257 


258  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

Frank  Manners  knew  a  vast  number  of  people  well, 
and  he  formed  a  habit  of  inviting  himself  to  lunch  at 
their  houses.  And  hostesses,  even  if  the  luncheon  hap- 
pened to  be  a  carefully  balanced  and  formal  affair,  an 
even  number  of  men  and  women  seated  just  so,  were 
always  delighted  to  have  an  extra  place  squeezed  in 
for  a  man  who,  if  not  actually  famous,  was  widely 
known  and  distinguished,  and  who,  especially  of  late, 
brought  an  immense  energy  into  the  conversation,  and 
greatly  helped  others  to  appear  at  their  best. 

He  had  friends  all  over  Long  Island  and  West- 
chester  County,  at  Bernardsville,  Tuxedo  and  Morris- 
town.  He  liked  to  arrive  just  when  the  cocktails  were 
brought  in.  After  a  long,  fast  drive  there's  only  one 
thing  better  than  a  cocktail  for  setting  a  heart-broken 
man's  tongue  merrily  wagging  and  that's  two  cock- 
tails. Sometimes  he  had  the  second  one  first.  He 
might  have  it  at  some  country  club  of  which  he  was  a 
member,  or  at  some  private  house  where  he  had  in- 
tended to  lunch,  only  to  find  that  the  owners  were 
lunching  somewhere  else,  and  that  the  butler  was  an 
old  friend,  or  he  might  stop  at  some  roadhouse.  Then 
when  he  arrived  for  lunch  the  cocktail  that  should  have 
been  the  first  found  a  jolly  companion  waiting  for  it 
and  people  who  had  known  him  for  years  declared 
that  it  dum  founded  them  to  find  that  he  had  so  much 
wit  and  mischief  in  him.  He  developed  a  delightful 
faculty  of  making  the  wicked  and  irrational  thing  ap- 
pear to  be  the  logical  thing,  the  Christian  thing,  and 
the  wise. 

The  pleasant,  insidious,  deadly  cocktail  habit  grew 
upon  him.  Upon  starting  back  to  town  he  began  soon 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  259 

to  find  that  he  had  not  had  quite  enough  to  drink 
with  his  lunch,  and  to  stop  here  and  there  to  remedy 
the  deficiency.  So  it  came  about  that  across  a  little 
glass  or  so  of  white  wine,  or  claret,  or  a  whiskey  and 
soda,  the  jolly  opportunist  cocktails  that  were  in  him 
often  found  themselves  shaking  hands  with  those 
scheming  and  virulent  malefactors,  white  mint  and 
brandy. 

Now  and  again  the  cocktails  that  he  had  drunk 
before  lunch  had  enough  life  left  to  utter  dying  mes- 
sages to  the  cocktails  which  he  drank  before  dinner, 
and  these  in  their  turn,  and  doubtless  upon  the  advice 
received  in  the  dying  messages,  formed  wild  and  in- 
considered  friendships  with  divers  pints  of  brut  cham- 
pagne. 

Some  nights  he  returned  to  his  apartment  with  the 
idea  that  he  could  paint  again,  and  that  he  would  be- 
gin in  the  morning.  Often  he  returned  with  the  feeling 
that  he  had  not  had  quite  enough  to  drink.  The 
whisky  that  he  learned  to  drink  by  himself  sometimes 
affected  him  like  opium.  Sometimes  it  divorced  his 
thoughts  entirely  from  the  things  that  troubled  him. 
Here  lay  the  danger.  In  those  hours  of  chance  quit- 
tance he  would  have  risked  hell,  and  indeed  he  did. 
During  those  periods  of  genuine  hallucination  he 
seemed  to  find  in  his  own  thoughts  and  character 
beauties  which  he  had  never  even  suspected  in  other 
people's  thoughts  and  characters ;  beauties  and  abilities 
and  short-cuts.  He  dreamed  wonderful  dreams.  And 
after  the  dreams  he  would  tumble  into  bed  and  actually 
lose  consciousness.  If  the  whiskey  could  have  done 
just  those  things  for  him,  and  nothing  else,  he  might 


26o  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

have  had  some  slight  justification  in  drinking  so  much 
and  so  often.  It  has  perhaps  in  its  day  actually  helped 
a  man  here  and  there  over  some  very  hard  place,  re- 
laxed his  mind  in  time  to  keep  it  from  snapping. 
But  it  did  not  help  Frank  Manners.  For  the  one  time 
that  it  soothed  him  and  sent  him  peacefully  to  sleep, 
it  excited  him  two  times  and  kept  him  awake,  smarting 
with  injustice  and  jealousy,  dark  and  vengeful. 

But  I  have  no  wish  to  exaggerate  his  lapse  of  habit 
and  character.  It  was  only  now  and  then  that  he  got 
going  too  hard,  and  ended  his  day,  quiet  enough  and 
even  dignified  to  the  eye,  but  potentially  very  much 
upset  in  the  stomach,  and  very  drunk  in  the  mind.  No 
one  saw  him  drunk — not  till  several  months  after  the 
divorce,  and  it  was  not  for  a  long  time  that  the  notion 
got  about  that  he  was  drinking  hard. 

Life,  he  believed,  would  be  more  tolerable  if  only  he 
could  be  more  of  an  average  man  and  rid  himself  of 
those  wild-goose  instincts  which  had  been  born  in  him. 
"Some  night  surely,"  he  thought,  "I  shall  think  how 
pretty  she  is,  how  desirable,  how  affectionate,  and  my 
thoughts  will  stop  there.  I  shall  not  feel  like  a  hound 
and  a  traitor." 

But  things  did  not  fall  out  as  he  hoped,  and  when  he 
realized  that  they  were  never  going  to  be  he  wanted  to 
break  with  Mrs.  Herriot.  But  he  was  too  kind-hearted, 
and,  while  she  remained  in  love  with  him,  he  could 
not  expect  to  find  any  ready-made  excuse.  He  began 
to  fear  that  after  the  divorce  Mrs.  Herriot  might  want 
him  to  marry  her.  But  he  need  not  have  worried. 
Mrs.  Herriot's  varied  experience  had  taught  her  a 
good  deal  of  horse-sense.  Good  women,  she  knew, 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  261 

sometimes  acquire  position  and  standing  by  marrying 
the  male  Herriots  of  the  world;  but  the  man,  good  or 
bad,  who  marries  the  female  Herriot  is  lost.  If  Mrs. 
Herriot  ever  married  again  she  would  marry  some 
man  who  had  money  and  no  position.  That  was  her 
only  chance.  Meanwhile,  because  he  seemed  to  love  her 
and  didn't,  Mrs.  Herriot  was  quite  madly  in  love  with 
Frank  Manners,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  it  seemed 
impossible  that  she  should  take  money  from  him. 
But  she  took  the  money  and  solaced  herself  with  the 
thought  that  if  she  hadn't  taken  it  she  couldn't  have 
afforded  to  be  faithful  to  him. 

Often  when  he  knew  that  Diana  was  elsewhere 
(Mrs.  Langham  kept  him  posted)  Manners  drove  out 
to  Westbury  and  spent  patient  hours  with  Tam. 
These  were  priceless  hours  for  Tam,  but  for  her 
father  there  was  hell  mixed  with  the  heaven  of  them. 
It  was  impossible  that  the  child  should  not  come  to 
harm  and  through  his  own  fault. 

"There  are  things  that  simply  cannot  be  got  around," 
he  said  once  to  Mrs.  Langham.  "I  was  older  than 
Diana,  she  loved  me  with  all  her  might.  I  didn't  keep 
her  love,  and  I  didn't  make  her  happy." 

"You  couldn't  keep  her  love,  you  mean,"  Mrs. 
Langham  had  retorted  quite  sharply,  "and  you 
couldn't  make  her  happy." 

"No,"  said  Manners,  "that  isn't  what  I  mean;  I 
didn't.  Once  I  was  served  with  a  glass  of  tokay  worth 
a  dollar  a  drop,  I  hit  the  top  of  the  long-stemmed 
glass  with  my  sleeve  and  spilled  the  stuff  all  over  the 
table.  Now,  I  didn't  have  to  do  that.  But  I  did  it. 
You  see  you're  down  on  Diana.  I'm  not.  You  think 


262  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

she  was  just  naturally  doomed  to  be  unhappy  through 
her  folly.  But  there  were  splendid  qualities  in  Diana. 
No,  you  don't  know.  And  she  trusted  the  shaping  of 
them  to  me,  and  glory ;  what  a  botch  I've  made  of  it." 

"She  gave  you  her  character  to  shape,  and  trusted 
you  completely  until  the  moment  when  you  suggested 
something  sensible  and  possibly  self-sacrificing;  no 
surely  self-sacrificing  as  all  sensible  things  are;  and 
then  she  very  promptly  took  back  her  trust  and  her 
character  and  proceeded  to  shape  the  latter  for  herself. 
It's  too  bad  it's  not  a  shape  that  can  be  seen  with  the 
eye.  She  would  have  too  much  sense  of  humor  to  let 
it  stay  on  exhibition." 

"You  don't  know  Mrs.  Langham.  More  and  more 
I  recall  things  that  I  have  done  to  hurt  her.  They 
seemed  very  little  at  the  time;  but  mountainous  now 
and  far-reaching." 

On  another  occasion  Mrs.  Langham  said  to  him: 

"Everybody  of  course  knows  now  that  Diana  is 
getting  a  divorce.  People  who  knew  you  both  are 
serenely  sure  that  it  is  a  put-up  job.  What  do  you 
wish  said?" 

"I  don't  want  the  matter  minced  in  any  way,"  said 
Manners.  "I  wish  the  people  who  are  so  cocksure  to 
be  jolted  into  uncertainty.  It  is  infinitely  better  for 
Diana  and  Tarn  that  people  should  believe  that  I  have 
treated  Diana  very  badly  for  a  long  time.  ...  As 
indeed  I  have,  since  I  had  her  love  and  her  happiness 
in  my  keeping  and  kept  neither.  But  don't  say  that. 
•Say  this:  'Diana  is  too  proud  to  stand  being  treated 
badly,  she  stood  it  as  long  as  she  could.' ' 

"But  that  is  flagrant,  downright  lying." 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  263 

"The  cause  is  good.  I  may  never  find  peace  and 
entertainment  in  this  world.  But  it  must  be  a  living 
hell  for  me  unless  Diana  is  given  every  chance  to  find 
the  happiness  that  I  could  not  give  her.  .  .  .  I'm  so 
worried  about  what  she  may  do  or  say  to  hurt  her 
chance.  Somehow  I  can't  imagine  her  letting  people 
abuse  me.  .  .  .  Does  she  see  much  of  Fenn?" 

"Very  little.  She  realizes  that  she  has  dealt  herself 
a  very  difficult  hand  and  she  is  trying  to  make  every 
card  count." 

"She  talks  about  that?" 

"Yes,  she  actually  came  to  me  for  advice  and  took 
some  of  it.  She  said:  'Mamma,  the  premises  may  not 
be  pretty,  but  accept  them,  since  they  are  the  prem- 
ises, and  tell  me  just  what  you  would  do  if  you  were 
in  my  place?  I  told  her  that  she  should  drop  Mr. 
Fenn  entirely  so  far  as  seeing  him  goes,  and  that  six 
months  or  so  after  the  divorce  she  could  meet  him,  say 
at  Mary  Hastings's  house  in  the  country  at  a  week-end 
party.  That  she  shouldn't  seem  very  much  taken  with 
him  at  first,  etc.  But  she  objected  to  that.  Too  many 
people  have  seen  them  together.  She  agreed,  though, 
that  Mary  shall,  if  agreeable,  seem  to  take  a  fancy  to 
him  and  have  him  about  a  good  deal.' ' 

"Will  she  marry  him  inside  of  a  year?" 

"Yes,  I  think  she  will." 

"Suppose — oh,  suppose  that  after  the  divorce  and 
before  the  year  is  up,  suppose  she  falls  out  of  love  with 
him,  what  would  she  do?" 

Somehow  he  built  up  the  vague  hope  that  Mrs. 
Langham's  answer  would  be  comforting;  but  it  was 
not. 


264  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"It's  my  opinion,"  she  said,  "that  already  Diana  is 
not  so  frantically  in  love  with  him  as  she  was.  The 
vase  was  very  pretty  in  the  shop  window,  but  now  that 
the  parcel  has  come  home  and  been  opened,  and  the 
vase  tried  here  and  there  in  familiar  surroundings  it 
doesn't  look  quite  right.  But — it  is  my  conviction, 
Frank,  that  Diana  will  go  on  with  this  no  matter 
what  happens.  I  think  that  she  is  going  to  be  a  brave 
victim  on  the  altar  of  false  pride.  She  is  determined 
that  no  one  shall  ever  say  to  her,  'we  told  you  so, 
Diana — your  love  wasn't  eternal  after  all.  It  was 
just  fits.  We  knew  that  all  along.' ' 

"If  she  marries  a  man  that  she  doesn't  love,"  said 
Manners  gravely,  "and  makes  good,  so  that  he  doesn't 
find  out,  and  nobody  finds  out — there  is  hope  for  her." 

"She  is  very  determined  to  make  a  success  of  this 
marriage.  She  talks  very  sensibly  and  cold-bloodedly 
about  money.  Into  the  contempt  that  I  feel  for  her, 
I  must  admit  that  there  is  sneaking  a  certain  admira- 
tion." 

The  full  import  of  what  Mrs.  Langham  had  said 
weighed  very  heavily  on  Manners,  and  he  could  not 
hold  back  the  bitterness  which  he  felt. 

"She  is  going  to  be  for  him  all  the  things  that  she 
couldn't  be  for  me !"  he  said. 

Mrs.  Langham  touched  his  coat-sleeve  with  the  tips 
of  her  fingers. 

"My  dear  boy,"  she  said,  "that  is  what  we  must 
both  hope,  isn't  it?" 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "of  course  we  do  hope  it. 
And  so  you  see  I  was  right  after  all.  She  has  splendid 
qualities!"  He  tried  to  look  triumphant  and  failed. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  265 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Langham,  but  once  more  in  the  dry 
and  precise  voice  which  was  natural  to  her,  "and  so 
has  the  murderer  if  he  goes  bravely  to  the  gallows." 

Neither  the  wine  nor  Mrs.  Herriot  had  the  power 
to  comfort  Frank  Manners,  and  no  more  had  the 
thought  that  he  had  been  right  about  Diana's  splendid 
qualities,  and  that  she  would  be  to  Fenn,  whether 
she  loved  him  or  not,  all  things  that  she  should 
have  been  to  him.  This  thought  indeed  hurt  him  as 
hardly  another  thought  had  the  power  to  hurt.  Once 
indeed  he  started  to  find  her  to  tell  her  how  that 
thought  hurt  him  and  how  unjust  it  was  for  her  to 
have  learned  how  to  be  brave  and  fine  and  self-sacri- 
ficing entirely  at  his  expense.  But  he  only  started. 
He  only  rose  from  his  chair,  and  the  wet  crash  of  a  tall 
glass  that  had  been  standing  on  the  arm  of  it  reminded 
him  that  it  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

It  had  been  one  of  those  nights  when  his  thoughts 
had  done  nothing  but  hound  along  on  the  trail  of  the 
injustice  that  had  been  done  him.  It  was  now  the 
morning  of  the  day  on  which  Diana  was  to  receive  an 
interlocutory  decree  of  divorce,  to  become  final  in  all 
probability  at  the  end  of  six  weeks.  But  Manners  did 
not  know  this.  He  knew  only  in  a  general  way  that 
something  definite  was  to  be  decided  soon.  Still,  he 
had  the  feeling  that  if  Diana  was  to  be  moved  from  her 
purpose  by  any  eleventh-hour  appeal  he  had  no  time 
to  lose. 

She  was  at  home  he  knew,  and  he  remembered  the 
telephone  on  the  table  by  the  head  of  her  bed,  and  he 
wondered  if  by  any  chance  she  had  forgotten  to  dis- 
connect it  for  the  night.  She  often  did,  and  com- 


266  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

plained  bitterly,  if  the  thing  rang  and  waked  her. 
Should  he  telephone  or  not?  He  would  think  it 
over. 

He  mixed  himself  a  fresh  drink  and  placed  it  on  the 
arm  of  his  chair,  first  moving  the  chair  to  avoid  the 
wet  and  jagged  mess  which  the  overturned  and  broken 
glass  had  made  on  the  floor.  When  he  waked  his  legs 
and  body  felt  very  cold,  and  the  drink  on  the  arm  of 
his  chair  no  longer  bubbled.  But  he  had  not  really 
slept;  he  had  only  nodded.  It  was  not  yet  four.  He 
remembered  that  he  had  been  about  to  speak  to  his 
wife  over  the  telephone.  Had  he  spoken  to  her?  He 
knit  his  brows  hard  and  tried  to  remember.  No,  he 
had  not  spoken  to  her,  not  for  ages.  They  were  no 
longer  on  speaking  terms.  He  had  wronged  her,  in- 
sulted the  very  kernel  of  her  womanhood.  He  had 
preferred  another  woman  to  her.  He  had  been  un- 
faithful. He  walked  to  the  telephone,  very  steadily, 
and  gave  the  number  of  his  house  at  Westbury. 

It  seemed  only  a  crumb  of  time  before  the  voice  he 
loved  so  well  was  sounding  in  his  ear.  "It's  I — 
Frank,"  he  said. 

She  had  no  hint  of  his  state  from  the  quality  of  his 
voice.  She  only  knew  that  something  was  wrong  with 
him.  Her  instant  surmise  was  that  he  had  done  some- 
thing terrible  to  himself,  and  that  he  had  waked  her 
at  that  unearthly  hour  to  say  good-by.  She  quaked 
with  fear  and  horror,  but  her  voice  was  cool  and 
practical. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Frank?" 

His  first  words  were  ominous. 

"Please  forgive  me,"  he  began   .    .    . 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  267 

Diana  kicked  off  the  bedclothes,  and  swung  her  legs 
over  the  side  of  the  bed. 

"What  have  you  done?" 

"Done — why,  I've  waked  you,  and  I  had  no  busi- 
ness to,  only  I  couldn't  help  it.  ... " 

Diana's  heart  rose  high  and  sank  low.  A  profound 
sigh  of  relief  whispered  in  her  nostrils. 

"I  can't  sleep,"  he  went  on,  "I  can't  ever  sleep. 
.  .  .  Oh,  Di,  darling,  do  for  pity's  sake  not  go  on  with 
this  thing.  Nobody  will  ever  love  you  the  way  I  love 
you.  If  I've  done  you  wrong  and  wrong  and  wrong, 
haven't  I  been  punished  enough?  How  can  you  hurt 
me  so  much,  when  I  was  once  so  dear  to  you?" 

The  distress,  the  childlike  distress,  in  his  voice 
moved  her  very  much,  and  though  she  was  not  in  the 
least  inclined  to  give  in  to  his  wishes,  she  found  it  very 
difficult  to  say  so. 

One  of  the  shoulder-straps  of  her  night-gown  had 
slipped  so  that  Diana's  left  breast  was  almost  wholly 
bare.  At  her  husband's  next  words  she  hastily  pulled 
the  nightgown  back  into  place,  as  she  might  have  done 
if  he  had  stepped  suddenly  into  view. 

"I  could  crawl  to  you  on  my  hands  and  knees,"  he 
said,  "if  I  could  lay  my  head  on  your  breast  just  one 
little  moment." 

"Frank,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  am  so  sorry!  But 
please,  please — this  is  no  time  to  discuss  what's  been 
and  gone  and  happened.  Do  go  back  to  bed.  .  .  . 
Count  the  sheep  going  over  the  hurdle.  .  .  .  Don't 
you  know  I'd  do  anything — anything — anything — 
except  the  things  I  can't  do  ?  .  .  . " 


268  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Then  the  man  spoke 
again. 

"Do  have  pity,"  he  said,  "for  Christ's  sake !" 

"Frank,"  she  said,  with  a  sudden  note  of  authority, 
"I  can't  bear  this.  I'll  say  anything  you  wish  me  to. 
I'll  make  any  promise  you  like.  It  will  be  because  I 
am  frightened.  It  will  be  under  compulsion.  Even 
if  I  held  myself  bound,  even  if  I  tried  to  keep  the 
promise,  I  shouldn't  be  able  to.  ...  Please  don't 
interrupt.  I  want  to  tell  you  something.  I  couldn't 
say  it  to  you  or  write  it.  I  think  I  have  given  you 
about  the  rawest  and  rottenest  deal  a  woman  ever 
gave  a  good  husband.  I  went  after  Ogden  for  all  I 
was  worth.  I  was  going  to  upset  him  just  a  little  if 
I  could,  and  then  I  was  going  to  have  fun  with  some- 
body else.  He  is  not  a  bit  to  blame.  No  more  than 
you  are.  I  got  caught  in  my  own  snare,  and  I  went 
crazy  mad.  I'd  give  anything  in  the  world  if  I  had 
behaved  myself  always  and  not  made  misery  for 
everybody  including  myself.  I  am  at  your  feet,  Frank, 
in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  asking  you  for  God's  sake  to 
forgive  me,  and  to  lay  your  kind  strong  hands  on  my 
head  and  give  me  your  blessing  and  tell  me  to  go  my 
way." 

The  voice  that  came  back  to  her  was  manly  and 
vibrant.  It  was  the  voice  of  some  strong  person  pre- 
pared to  defend  the  weak. 

"Don't  say  such  things,  Diana.  I  won't  have  it. 
I  won't  let  anyone  abuse  you.  I  won't  even  let  you 
abuse  yourself.  I'm  so  ashamed  of  myself  for  waking 
you  and  making  fresh  trouble  for  you  that  I  don't 
know  what  to  do.  You've  just  got  to  forgive  me  and 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  269 

forget  all  about  it.  It  isn't  like  me.  It  isn't  charac- 
teristic. Mostly  I'm  all  right,  and  you  needn't  worry 
about  me.  But  sometimes  at  night,  or  in  the  morning, 
like  this  I  seem  to  develop  a  yellow  streak.  .  .  .  Now 
are  you  all  right  ?  You'll  go  right  to  sleep  again  ?  I'm 
no  Indian  giver,  Di.  Never  fear  it.  I  have  given  you 
your  freedom,  and  I  pray  God  you  find  happiness.'* 

Diana  lay  for  a  long  time  staring  at  the  ceiling. 

"What  a  fool  I  am,"  she  thought;  "why  couldn't  I 
admit  in  the  first  place  that  I'd  been  wicked?  Frank 
would  have  done  nothing,  but  forgive  me  and  urge  me 
to  divorce  him  as  fast  as  he  could  talk.  It's  pretending 
that  you  are  right  when  you  know  perfectly  well  you 
are  wrong  that  infuriates  people  more  than  anything 
else.  .  .  ." 

Diana  had  done  more  than  disarm  her  husband. 
She  had  given  him  the  feeling  that  he  had  been  mag- 
nanimous. The  more  he  thought  of  how  she  had 
blamed  herself  the  less  he  found  himself  blaming  her. 
Between  the  gravity  of  the  interlocutory  and  the  final 
decrees,  he  found  not  only  the  wish  but  the  courage  to 
paint  a  picture. 


CHAPTER    XX 

IT  has  been  remarked  that  little  Mrs.  Herriot  was 
too  wise  to  marry  a  man  like  Frank  Manners;  but 
when  the  divorce  had  been  made  final  she  had  the  curi- 
osity to  hint  at  making  their  relations  permanent  in 
order  to  see  what  he  would  say. 

The  hot  summer  was  over  and  he  had  taken  her  for 
a  long  run  up  the  Hudson  to  see  the  first  flashes  of 
autumn  color.  He  was  a  free  man  now,  free  to  marry 
whom  he  chose,  free  to  make  a  new  life  for  himself. 
But  he  was  not  really  free.  The  law  could  not  make 
him  stop  loving,  and  though  Diana  had  said  that  she 
could  not  take  a  penny  of  his  money  and  that  Tam  was 
to  be  shared  equally  between  them,  still  the  fact  re- 
mained that  her  lawyers  had  so  confused  her  intentions 
and  understanding  that  the  Court  ended  by  awarding 
her  a  heavy  alimony  and  the  absolute  custody  of  the 
child. 

As  to  the  causes  which  had  led  to  the  rupture  be- 
tween Manners  and  his  wife,  Mrs.  Herriot  could  never 
satisfy  herself.  She  knew  very  well  that  the  gentle, 
affectionate  man  whose  mistress  she  was  loved  some 
other  woman.  She  believed  that  he  still  loved  the 
woman  who  had  been  his  wife.  And  once,  because  she 
was  naturally  good-hearted  and  generous,  she  had 
said:  "Look  here,  Frank,  are  you  sure  there's  no  way 
you  can  make  it  up  with  her?" 

He  had  answered,  "I  am  living  entirely  in  the  pres- 

270 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  271 

ent,  and  the  future.  That  this  is  so  is  entirely  my 
fault.  That's  enough  for  even  a  very  sweet  and  trust- 
worthy little  person  to  know." 

"But  you'd  give  your  soul  to  be  back  where  you 
were?" 

He  did  not  answer. 

"Tell  me  one  thing,  Frank.  Did  she  fall  in  love 
with  another  man?" 

Precisely  as  the  gay  old  gentleman  in  the  play  chucks 
the  pretty  parlor-maid  under  the  chin  so  Frank  Man- 
ners chucked  pretty  Mrs.  Herriot,  and  in  addition 
laughed  at  her. 

"Suppose  you  stop  trying  all  these  short-cuts  to 
knowledge,"  he  said,  "and  go  by  the  regular  twisty- 
wisty  road  ?  In  short,  read  the  newspapers.  They  will 
tell  you  that  Mr.  Manners  has  wronged  Mrs.  Manners, 
that  there  is  a  woman  in  the  case,  but  that  it  has  not 
been  necessary  to  name  her.  If  you  think  there  is  more 
to  the  case  than  that,  suppose  you  go  direct  to  the 
referee  and  ask  him." 

One  night  when  he  had  had  a  good  deal  to  drink  and 
was  sleeping  very  heavily,  she  had  the  temerity  and 
the  curiosity  to  go  through  his  clothes.  Two  letters  in 
his  inside  pocket  told  her  nothing.  In  his  change- 
pocket  she  found  one  of  those  twenty-dollar  gold 
pieces  which  have  been  transformed  into  lockets.  She 
got  it  open,  and  found  a  little  picture  of  Diana  and 
Tarn.  And  they  told  her  nothing  that  she  didn't  pretty 
well  know.  And  she  crept  back  into  bed  thinking  what 
a  fool  she  was.  "He  had  only  to  wake,"  she  thought, 
"and  see  me  with  my  hand  in  his  pocket  to  pass  me 
up." 


272  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

The  Catskills  showed  more  gold  and  red  than  were 
to  be  expected  so  early  in  the  fall.  The  day  was  serene 
and  perfumed  in  the  early  morning;  but  toward  noon 
it  became  hazy  and  sultry,  and  when  they  came  out 
of  the  little  road-house  in  which  they  had  eaten  lunch 
there  was  a  fine  sky-line  of  thunder-heads  above  the 
western  horizon. 

But  Mrs.  Herriot  was  for  going  on. 

"It  will  be  a  hard  shower  maybe,"  she  said,  "we'll 
find  shelter  somewhere  and  afterward  the  air  will  be 
simply  too  delicious." 

She  proved  a  prophet.  There  was  a  hard  shower, 
and  the  nearest  shelter  when  it  broke  was  Ogden 
Fenn's  little  house  near  Combers. 

The  house  had  the  deaf-and-blind  look  of  uninhab- 
ited houses  in  general;  but  smoke  rose  from  the  care- 
taker's. 

And  Manners,  being  remembered,  and  being  sup- 
posed to  be  a  friend  of  Mr.  Fenn's,  was  at  once  ad- 
mitted. Shutters  were  opened  for  him  and  a  fire  built 
in  the  big  room.  The  rain  roared  on  the  roof.  The 
caretaker  withdrew,  and  Mrs.  Herriot  said  that  it  was 
a  gorgeous  adventure  and  that  the  house  was  a  perfect 
duck. 

"Is  Mr.  Fenn  a  great  friend  of  yours?"  she  asked. 

"I  think  a  good  deal  of  him,"  said  Manners. 

She  accepted  his  words  at  their  face  value. 

"Is  he  married?" 

"No." 

"He  must  be  nice  to  have  such  a  nice  house.  But 
if  you  aren't  married,  I  don't  see  any  point  in  having 
a  house.  I  believe  in  flats  and  suites  for  the  unmated. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  273 

"It's  tough  luck,"  she  went  on,  "when  a  woman 
knows  that  she's  behaved  so  she  can't  be  anybody's 
wife,  and  knows  at  the  same  time  that  she  could  be  all 
kinds  of  a  good  wife  if  she  could  only  have  another 
chance." 

"It  is  tough  luck,"  said  Manners  simply.  "It's  the 
toughest  kind  of  luck." 

"If  it  weren't  for  people,"  Mrs.  Herriot  said,  "if  a 
man's  always  had  people,  why  sooner  or  later  those 
people  are  necessary  to  him  again.  I  think,"  she  said 
demurely,  "that  if  it  weren't  for  that  I'd  propose  to 
you,  Frank." 

She  looked  the  room  up  and  down.  "If  you  cut  a 
big  window  through  that  north  wall,  wouldn't  this 
make  an  Al  studio?" 

"It  would." 

"Well,  couldn't  you  work  in  a  place  like  this,  and 
forget  all  about  people?" 

"I  might  work,  and  very  likely  I  should  soon  forget 
about  some  people." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  really  proposing,"  she  said,  "but  I  be- 
lieve I  would  if  you  loved  me." 

She  sighed  and  looked  very  pretty  and  innocent.  His 
eyes  had  a  pleasant  smile  for  her. 

"Oh,  I  know  what  you  are  thinking,"  she  said.  "But 
it  is  possible.  I  am  what  I  am.  I've  been  what  I've 
been.  There's  no  getting  around  it.  But  I  don't  look 
it,  do  I?  It  doesn't  show.  I'm  not  a  fool.  I  see 
straight.  Sometimes  when  I  look  at  myself  in  the 
glass  I  say:  'Young  woman,  you  look  as  if  you  had 
everything  to  learn.'  ...  I  wish  I  had,  Frank.  I  wish 
I  had."  ' 


274  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"I  wish  so,  too,  my  dear,"  he  said  gravely. 

She  walked  to  a  window  and  looked  out.  The  steep 
road  that  passed  near  the  house  was  a  torrent.  The 
rain  showed  no  sign  of  letting  up.  She  returned  to 
the  fire. 

"Will  you  do  me  a  favor,  Frank?" 

"Of  course." 

"Will  you  pretend  that  we've  just  moved  in?  I've 
rice  in  my  hat,  and  you've  built  the  house  as  a  surprise 
for  me." 

"That's  right,"  he  said. 

"I  think,"  she  speculated,  "that  the  first  thing  you'd 
do  when  we  got  inside  the  door  would  be  to  take  me 
in  your  arms  and  kiss  me." 

He  did  this  at  once,  and  with  much  gallantry. 

"And  then,"  she  said,  "I'd  take  off  my  hat,  and 
you'd  show  me  all  over  the  house." 

She  took  off  her  hat,  patted  her  hair  which  was 
always  tidy,  and  looked  expectant. 

Frank  Manners  then  began  to  enter  into  the  game. 
He  showed  her  over  the  house.  They  went  into  the 
cellar  and  the  attic.  But  it  was  with  great  reluctance 
that  he  pushed  open  the  door  of  the  room  that  had 
been  Diana's  on  the  night  of  the  abortive  elopement, 
and  in  which  he  had  pleaded  with  her,  and  almost  won 
her  back  into  his  keeping.  On  the  bureau  lay  a  pair 
of  wash-leather  gloves.  He  remembered  now  that  she 
had  left  her  gloves,  but  had  refused  to  turn  back  for 
them. 

Mrs.  Herriot  tried  on  the  gloves;  almost  they  had 
still  the  shape  of  Diana's  hands. 

"Well,  of  course!"  she  exclaimed,  "Mr.  Fenn  is  a 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  275 

bachelor,  but — "  she  tossed  the  gloves  disdainfully 
back  on  the  bureau — "some  young  chicken's,  I  sup- 
pose," was  her  comment. 

Manners's  face  became  very  grave.  But  she  did  not 
see  this,  for  her  back  was  turned  to  him. 

"There's  one  more  room,"  he  said. 

"It's  not  as  nice  as  the  other,"  observed  Mrs.  Her- 
riot,  once  more  pretending  that  she  was  a  bride,  "but 
those  gloves  spoil  the  other  for  me.  Say  that  they 
spoil  it  for  you,  too." 

"They  do'." 

"Good.  Then  this  room  will  be  ours.  And  the 
other  can  be  yours  in  case  I'm  sick  or  anything,  or  for 
a  guest,  and  the  little  one  down  in  the  end  gable — oh, 
that  shall  be  for  the  inevitable  consequences." 

It  was  excellent  arrangement,  Frank  Manners  said. 
And  he  imagined  that  if  ever  Fenn  and  Diana  and  Tarn 
came  to  live  in  this  house  they  would  make  precisely 
the  same  disposition  of  the  available  space.  The  gable 
room  where  Tarn  would  sleep  was  at  the  end  of  quite 
a  long  corridor  for  so  small  a  house.  He  entered  it 
again,  full  of  the  thought  that  it  would  be  his  little 
daughter's.  He  walked  to  one  of  the  windows  and 
looked  out.  A  ladder  leaning  against  an  outbuilding 
caught  his  eye,  the  eyes  that  could  measure  so  accu- 
rately. 

Then  and  there  he  had  his  first  inkling  of  the  plan 
that  was  later  to  be  his  obsession. 

"If  I  learned  that  she  wasn't  happy  with  them,"  he 
thought,  "I  could  come  in  the  night  and  climb  in  at  the 
window,  and  wrap  her  in  a  blanket  and  take  her  away." 

"What  are  you  looking  at,  Frank  ?" 


276  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"An  old  ladder.    I  was  counting  the  rungs." 

They  went  down-stairs  again;  but  for  Mrs.  Herriot 
the  game  was  not  yet  played  out. 

"Frank,"  she  said,  "it's  still  raining  cats  and  dogs. 
It  looks  as  if  it  might  go  on  all  afternoon  and  all  night. 
Couldn't  you  bribe  the  caretaker  to  get  supplies  up 
from  the  village?  ...  I'd  so  like  to  go  on  pretending 
till  to-morrow." 

But  Frank  Manners  had  no  mind  to  spend  another 
night  in  that  house.  The  sight  of  Diana's  gloves  and 
the  thought  that  Fenn  might  be  unkind  to  Tam  had 
disturbed  his  equilibrium. 

"I  have  to  be  in  town  to-night,"  he  said.  "I  am 
sorry." 

But  seeing  how  disappointed  she  looked  he  hastened 
to  make  amends. 

"Look  here.  You  nice  little  person,"  he  said,  "I 
have  heavy  alimony  to  pay  and  if  I  don't  get  busy  I'll 
not  be  able  to  pay  it.  I  know  a  house  that  I  can  get  for 
a  few  months;  the  barn  is  a  studio.  It's  in  lovely 
autumn  country.  There  are  no  neighbors.  .  .  .  How 
would  you  like  that?" 

"Oh— but,  Frank,"  she  said,  "I'd  love  it." 

"You'll  pose  for  me,  so  I  won't  have  to  bother  about 
models.  I  have  the  refusal  of  the  grill  in  the  new  Cas- 
capedia.  I'll  sign  on  for  it.  It's  a  whole  big  lot  of 
money — nymphs  and  autumn  foliage.  Nymphs  run- 
ning and  laughing  and  screaming  and  taking  cover— 
and  Pan  hunting  with  a  pack  of  fawns — hunting 
methodically  and  cruelly  like  bloodhounds.  In  the 
preliminary  sketches  you'll  be  all  the  nymphs.  .  .  . 
Now  that's  a  bargain,  is  it  ?" 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  277 

"Of  course  it's  a  bargain." 

"Well,  then,  smile  and  forgive  me  about  not  staying 
here  to-night,  and  give  me  a  kiss." 

As  they  neared  the  city,  she  said  something  to  him 
that  was  not  easy  for  her  to  say. 

"If  you  are  going  to  put  this  big  job  over,  Frank," 
she  said,  "hadn't  you  better  climb  on  the  wagon?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  must." 

She  slid  her  arm  under  his  and  pressed  it  gently. 

"It'll  be  lots  nicer,  too,"  she  said,  "for  me." 

"Of  course  it  will,"  he  laughed.  "Whiskey  is  noth- 
ing but  egotism  in  a  liquid  form.  I'll  be  good." 

And  a  few  days  later,  a  thirsty  but  temporarily  re- 
formed Manners,  having  completed  his  arrangements, 
drove  away  with  her  in  the  racing  car,  and  they  settled 
down  to  an  autumn  of  simple  living,  hard  work  and 
somewhat  complicated  love-making.  As  Mrs.  Herriot 
wrote  to  her  most  intimate  woman  friend,  Miss  Violet 
LeNeuf ,  "Making  love  with  a  man  who  loves  his  work 
better  than  you  and  another  lady  better  than  his  work 
is  very  complicated.  .  .  ." 

She  corresponded  most  methodically  with  Miss 
LeNeuf,  at  this  time,  and  certain  passages  from  her 
letters  are  not  without  value  in  elaborating  the  char- 
acter of  the  man  with  whom  she  was  living. 

'  .  .  .  Yes,  my  dear,  stark!  And  on  one  foot  till 
the  s-w-e-a-t  ran  off  me.  Frank  only  casts  a  cold  and 
calculating  glance  my  way  once  in  a  while,  but  I  come 
out  fine  in  some  of  the  sketches.  He  pulls  me  out  long 
and  scrunches  me  up  till  I  look  thicker.  And  he  makes 
any  number  of  pretty  faces  out  of  the  simple  little  mug 
that  God  gave  me.  That's  so  when  dozens  of  me  go 


278  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

gallivanting  round  the  new  grill  that  he's  fixing,  the 
beaux  monde  won't  recognize  little  Herriot.  I'm  a 
herd  of  nymphs  being  chased  by  a  pack  of  fawns  and 
satyrs.  Frank  said  that  at  first  when  I  ran,  I  woggled 
and  didn't  look  as  if  I  was  really  trying  to  get  away. 
So  one  day  he  catches  up  a  garter-snake,  and  you 
should  have  seen  little  Herriot  beat  it,  and  you  should 
have  heard  her  yell.  Frank  laughed  till  I  thought  he'd 
die.  You  should  see  the  sketch  in  which  I  take  cover. 
It's  the  best  yet.  Frank  made  me  run  around  the  tennis 
court  until  I  was  ready  to  burst,  and  then  he  made  me 
hide  in  a  bunch  of  Virginia  creeper.  When  the  thing's 
done,  you'll  look  and  look  and  see  nothing  but  the 
leaves  at  first;  then  you'll  pipe  a  bright  and  terrified 
pair  of  lamps  and  then  you'll  see  all  me  scrunched 
down  flat  and  blowing  like  a  porpoise.  .  .  ." 

"Thanks  for  the  compliment.  I  would  make  a  good 
wife,  but  I  never  will,  not  for  this  dear  boy.  I  couldn't 
bore  him  into  looking  bored,  or  tease  him  into  saying 
anything  rude  or  cutting  if  I  gave  my  life  to  it.  I'd 
like  him  to  beat  me  almost,  and  then  make  up  for  it. 
But  he's  the  other  way.  He's  so  steadily  kind  and 
thoughtful  and  unselfish  that  it  just  can't  be  any 
trouble  to  him.  So  there's  no  virtue  in  it.  The  things 
that  trouble  him  are  so  big  that  little  things  like  burnt 
potatoes  don't  matter  a  bit.  ...  Of  course  it's  the 
trouble  he  had  with  his  wife,  and  not  having  his  little 
girl.  I  stopped  long  ago  trying  to  worm  the  story 
out  of  him.  But  you  don't  live  with  a  man  as  his  wife 
without  learning  some  of  his  thoughts.  ...  If  the 
way  was  paved  with  women  like  me  he'd  run  over  them 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  279 

with  spiked  shoes  to  get  to  her.  He  wouldn't  be  cruel. 
He  simply  wouldn't  know  they  were  there.  ..." 

"We  had  an  awful  fright,  the  pair  of  us  (the  usual 
thing),  but  nothing  came  of  it,  thank  God,  and  we're 
working  overtime  while  the  weather  lasts.  I'm  tough 
all  over  now,  the  way  your  face  and  hands  just  natur- 
ally are.  Frank  says  I'm  like  some  of  the  trees  he's 
reading  about  in  a  book  there  is  here.  'Hardy  as  far 
north  as  Mass.,  in  sheltered  positions/  It's  a  love  of  a 
country,  and  if  I  wasn't  so  damned  unhappy  that  I 
could  scream  sometimes  I'd  be  happy  as  a  clam.  .  .  . 
He  subscribed  to  all  the  society  papers.  There  was  a 
picture  of  her  with  the  little  girl  in  the  last  'Town  and 
Country/  and  some  text  to  go  with  it.  Lovely  faces, 
just  like  pansies.  I  dare  anybody  to  say  that  my  Frank 
ever  wronged  anybody  in  his  life;  but  no  woman  with 
a  face  like  hers  ever  can  have  wronged  anybody  either. 
He  wasn't  looking  for  the  picture,  and  I  happened  to 
be  watching  him  when  he  came  across  it.  He  just 
opened  the  magazine  quickly,  came  right  on  the  picture, 
and  froze,  the  way  you've  seen  setters  do  in  pictures 
when  there's  a  bunch  of  quail  on  one  side  of  a  bush 
and  they're  on  the  other.  I  knew  darn  well  what  was 
the  matter,  but  I  said:  'Picture  of  someone  you  know?' 
and  I  went  and  looked  over  his  shoulder.  'It's  a  picture 
of  my  wife  and  our  little  girl/  he  said,  'and  a  very 
good  picture/  After  a  while  I  said:  'Frank,  why  do 
you  always  say  my  wife  instead  of  my  former  wife?' 

"  'Why  do  I  ?'  says  he,  'why,  because  she  is  my 
wife/  .  .  . 

"He's  drinking  again ;  but  not  hard.  I  don't  worry. 
He's  been  good  for  a  long  while.  He  says  he's  gone 


280  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

stale  on  his  work.  We're  resting,  that  means  I  wear 
clothes  and  we  take  long  walks.  I  think  he  wants  to 
break  with  me,  and  don't  know  how.  The  minute  I'm 
sure  of  it  I'll  make  it  easy  for  him.  Love  him?  Of 
course  I  do.  But  I've  had  every  chance  to  make  him 
love  me,  and  he — he  doesn't  even  get  used  to  me.  I 
don't  make  his  life  one  mite  easier,  and  maybe  some 
one  else  would.  I  don't  believe  he'd  have  touched  me 
or  any  other  woman  with  a  ten-foot  pole  except  to  fur- 
nish grounds'  for  that  wife  of  his.  Will  you  send 
me  one  half-dozen  black  silks,  and  charge  same? 
Same  old  size,  my  feet  haven't  spread  in  spite  of  going 
barefoot.  ..." 

One  day,  and  most  of  the  leaves  had  fallen  by  now, 
Frank  Manners  announced  that  he  could  do  no  more 
good  in  that  place,  and  suggested  that  they  return  to 
the  city. 

"We've  played  at  love  in  a  cottage,"  he  said,  "and 
we  know  all  about  it.  Would  you  like  to  keep  it  up 
forever?" 

"No,  dear,"  she  said.  "And  why?  Because  I  can't 
make  you  happy.  Gawd  knows  I've  tried,  every  way 
I  could  think  of.  It's  easy  to  make  most  men  happy 
for  a  time,  but  I've  never  made  you  happy  for  one 
single  minute." 

He  slipped  his  arm  around  her  shoulders  and 
pressed  her  close  to  his  side. 

"If  it's  our  last  day,"  he  said,  "let's  spend  it  on 
the  lake.  We'll  paddle  out  to  the  middle,  and  just  sit 
and  let  the  wind  take  us;  where  we  touch  shore  we'll 
eat  lunch,  and  then  I'll  lie  on  my  back  and  smoke,  and 
you  can  tell  me  things." 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  281 

They  adhered  to  that  plan,  and  a  little  sadly,  since 
it  was  for  the  last  time.  When  they  had  been  wafted 
ashore  and  had  had  lunch,  Frank  Manners  lay  on  his 
back  and  smoked  with  his  head  in  Mrs.  Herriot's  lap. 
Presently  he  saw  a  V-shaped  wedge  of  wild  geese  fly- 
ing South,  and  he  pointed  them  out  to  his  mistress. 
When  the  geese  were  no  longer  visible  he  shivered  a 
little  as  if  he  were  cold,  and  got  up. 

"My  dear  child,"  he  said,  "you  were  complaining 
that  you  had  not  made  me  happy.  You  saw  those 
geese?" 

And  forthwith,  talking  very  quietly,  he  told  her 
something  of  their  habits;  how  they  love  but  once. 
How  sometimes  the  survivor  of  a  mating  mourns  his 
mate  for  nearly  a  century.  He  told  her  how  certain 
ganders  have  kept  flying  into  the  guns  until  they  were 
at  last  killed,  and  how  certain  observers  believe  that 
such  birds  actually  committed  suicide. 

"Once  in  a  while,"  he  said,  "you  find  men  who  are 
geese  enough  to  behave — like  geese.  If  you  haven't 
made  me  happy  it's  because  I  am  one  of  those 
men.  .  .  .  The  wild  goose  has  lost  his  mate,  my 
dear,  and  his  life  is  all  mourning." 

She  was  profoundly  touched.  And  they  walked  in 
silence  to  where  they  had  left  the  canoe. 

"You  tried  the  impossible,"  he  said,  after  he  had 
paddled  a  little  way.  "With  the  utmost  good  nature, 
tact  and  charm,  if  I  had  been  a  stick  or  a  stone  you 
would  have  succeeded.  But  you  were  up  against  a 
wild  goose." 

Mail  was  waiting  for  them  at  the  house,  and  among 
Mrs.  Herriot's  letters  was  one  from  Miss  LeXeuf  teH- 


282  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

ing  of  a  mutual  friend's  suicide.  The  man  with  whom 
the  mutual  friend  had  lived  for  some  years  had  gone 
suddenly  mad  over  a  perfectly  respectable  girl  of  good 
family  and  married  her  at  the  end  of  a  short  engage- 
ment. Miss  LeNeuf  wrote:  "Martha  seemed  to  take 
the  thing  quietly  enough.  She  said  Vic  had  settled  a 
lot  of  money  on  her  and  done  the  square  thing  all 
round.  .  .  .  The  next  day,  my  dear,  they  found  her 
dead  in  her  bathtub  with  her  wrists  almost  severed. 
Lois,  her  colored  maid,  was  the  one  to  find  her,  and 
she  ran  right  down  to  my  flat  and  banged  on  the  door 
till  I  got  up  and  opened  it.  I  got  Headquarters  on  the 
'phone  and  then  I  ran  up-stairs.  Only  Martha's  face 
showed  and  of  course  the  water  looked  like  pure  blood. 
She  looked  like  a  white  mask  that  someone  had  laid 
on  a  red  sofa.  .  .  .  Where,  I  ask  you,  does  anyone 
find  the  courage  to  use  a  razor  ?" 

They  were  both  very  much  shocked  by  the  letter. 
Martha,  it  seemed,  had  posed  more  than  once  for  Man- 
ners years  ago.  She  had  been  an  independent  sort, 
with  a  good  deal  of  natural  dignity. 

"I  could  no  more  cut  myself,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Her- 
riot.  "I'd  rather  sit  till  doomsday  and  listen  to  my 
heart  breaking  like  ice  in  spring.  How  would  you 
kill  yourself  if  you  got  the  bee  in  your  bonnet?" 

"Oh,"  said  Manners,  "I  have  it  all  nicely  and  com- 
fortably arranged.  I'd  go  to  my  house  in  the  country 
when  the  weather  is  around  zero.  I'd  put  on  the  suit 
I  was  married  in.  When  it  gets  to  be  almost  bedtime, 
I  swallow  enough  morphine  to  make  me  comatose.  I 
open  all  the  windows  in  the  room  where  I  used  to  sleep, 
I  lie  down  on  the  bed  without  any  covering  on  me,  I 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  283 

cross  my  right  ankle  over  my  left,  I  fold  my  hands  on 
my  breast,  and  nobody  ever  knows  whether  the  mor- 
phine killed  me  or  whether  I  froze  to  death." 

"Where  would  you  get  the  morphine  ?"  she  asked. 

"I've  got  it,"  said  he.  "I've  had  it  for  years.  Our 
cook  had  a  toothache  and  our  doctor  came  and  gave 
her  a  hypodermic.  Seems  he  left  his  main  supply  in 
her  room.  She  brought  me  the  bottle  to  return  to  him. 
I  forgot  all  about  it,  and  nobody  reminded  me.  I 
came  across  it  in  the  spring,  quarter-grain  tablets,  full 
strength,  plenty  of  Jem." 

"You've  never  touched  them,  Frank?" 

"Never,"  he  said,  "and  I  don't  intend  to.  But  mor- 
phine is  like  a  revolver.  If  you  ever  do  need  it,  you 
need  it  badly." 

"What's  a  dose?"  she  asked. 

"One  quarter-grain  is  a  good  dose,"  he  said.  "A 
couple  of  grains  might  be  dangerous." 

She  had  asked  the  question  idly,  but  the  figures 
stuck  in  her  mind. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

WHEN  Diana  found  that  being  free  no  more  meant 
being  free  than  married  had  meant  being  bound,  she 
began  to  see  the  world  as  it  is  more  clearly  than  she 
had  ever  seen  it  before,  and  the  spoiled  child  in  her 
after  a  few  violent  protests  and  struggles  curled  up  its 
wretched  toes  and  died. 

She  had  learned  at  last  that  freedom  is  not  for  those 
who  do  wrong,  for  she  was  no  longer  free  to  do  right. 
Even  if  she  wished  she  could  never  recover  the 
precious  things  which  she  had  thrown  away.  And  in 
spite  of  her  decree  of  absolute  divorce,  her  life  seemed 
still  inextricably  tangled  up  with  her  husband's.  She 
was  living  on  his  money  for  one  thing.  When  she  had 
said  that  she  would  not  take  a  cent  from  him  she  had 
meant  that  she  would  not.  But  she  could  not  the  mo- 
ment the  decree  was  granted  stop  living  the  way  she 
had  always  lived,  and  start  living  :~i  another  way  upon 
an  income  of  absolutely  nothing  a  year.  She  had  sup- 
posed that  her  family  would  come  to  the  rescue  of  her 
pride;  but  even  Mrs.  Langham  took  the  attitude  that 
a  woman  who  had  made  such  a  perfect  idiot  of  herself 
had  no  business  to  have  any  pride. 

"The  law  has  awarded  you  with  alimony,"  said 
Mrs.  Langham,  "and  you'll  have  to  live  on  that.  You 
could  starve  if  you  thought  best,  but  Tam  is  used  to 
•omparative  luxury.  The  law  has  given  you  custody 

284 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  285 

over  Tarn,  after  going  deeply  into  the  merits  of  your 
case,  and  you  can't  very  well  begin  your  custodian- 
ship by  taking  her  to  live  in  the  park  and  feeding  her 
on  purloined  berries  and  raw  squirrels.  You  have  this 
house  for  another  year,  I  think,  and  money  enough  to 
run  it.  I  don't  see  that  you  can  do  anything  else  for 
the  present." 

"Of  course  you'll  stay  with  me." 

"I  shall  do  no  such  thing,"  said  her  mother  tartly. 
"Do  you  think  I  would  live  on  Frank's  money  after  the 
way  a  member  of  my  family  has  treated  him?" 

"You  could  pay  your  share,  couldn't  you?"  Diana 
was  almost  pleading.  Her  mother  was  a  great  con- 
venience. When  you  have  a  child,  and  at  the  same 
time  like  to  be  on  the  go  a  great  deal,  a  mother  who 
lives  with  you  is  tremendously  useful.  Diana  had  un- 
pleasant visions  of  being  more  closely  tied  to  domestic 
matters  than  she  had  ever  been  tied  before. 

"I  sha'n't  enjoy  living  here  after  what  has  hap- 
pened," said  Mrs.  Langham.  "I  have  a  few  thousands 
a  year,  and  I  think  I  shall  go  abroad." 

"Surely,  Mamma,  you'll  stay  for  my  wedding! 
People  would  think " 

"I  shall  be  on  my  way  to  the  wedding,"  said  Mrs. 
Langham,  "but  I  am  afraid  that  I  shall  be  taken  sick 
in  Paris.  And  isn't  it  rather  late  to  worry  about  what 
people  will  think?  If  I  tell  even  my  intimate  friends 
that  it's  all  Frank's  fault,  isn't  that  enough?" 

So  Diana  and  Tam  were  left  to  keep  house  in  West- 
bury  all  by  themselves,  and  the  person  they  needed 
most  was  the  person  whom  Diana  had  insisted  on  driv- 
ing from  the  house.  Diana  was  beginning  to  realize 


286  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

what  a  weight  of  responsibility  the  average  decent 
American  husband  staggers  under.  All  that  responsi- 
bility had  been  shifted  to  her  own  shoulders  and  she 
found  it  most  trying  to  carry. 

Still,  if  she  was  to  be  a  very  poor  man's  wife  the 
training  was  excellent.  She  got  out  of  the  habit  of 
rushing  off  to  town  at  the  slightest  excuse.  You  sim- 
ply couldn't  leave  a  little  child  with  no  one  more  reli- 
able than  the  average  servant  to  look  after  it,  and  get 
the  right  doctor  if  it  ate  poison-ivy,  or  the  best  bone- 
setter  if  it  fell  down  and  broke  its  neck. 

Free  ?  She  was  tied  hand  and  foot !  At  least  when 
she  was  Frank's  wife  she  had  come  and  gone  as  she 
pleased.  She  had  been  able  to  see  her  lover  day  after 
day.  Her  respectability  was  above  suspicion.  But  now 
that  Frank  no  longer  sheltered  her,  and  her  mother 
had  packed  up  her  things  and  gone  abroad  it  was  as 
difficult  for  her  to  see  him  as  if  she  had  been  a  nun  in  a 
convent. 

But  of  course  she  could  write  to  him  and  receive  his 
letters.  And  she  did  write  to  him  often,  and  he  came 
'back  at  her  with  from  one  to  three  letters  a  day;  but 
for  them  both  it  was  growing  more  and  more  difficult 
to  throw  any  new  and  original  illuminations  upon  the 
wonderful  and  eternal  love  which  they  had  for  each 
other. 

From  Frank  Manners  she  received  no  letters.  And 
her  curiosity  as  to  what  had  become  of  him,  and  her 
anxiety  for  him  became  acute.  It  is  true  that  Tarn 
often  had  letters  from  her  father.  But  they  revealed 
nothing  whatever  of  the  man  save  his  love  for  his 
child.  They  were  beautifully  printed,  as  a  rule,  so  that 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  287 

Tarn  could  read  them  for  herself,  and,  as  a  rule,  they 
were  extra  illustrated,  in  pen  and  ink,  in  wash,  or 
sometimes  in  color.  Love  they  revealed,  and  imagina- 
tion. But  even  Diana,  who  knew  him  best,  could  not 
say  if  the  man  who  made  those  letters  was  gay  or  sad, 
working  or  idling,  sick  or  well.  The  postmarks  told 
her  that  after  leaving  New  York  he  had  gone  to  a  place 
with  an  Indian  name  somewhere  in  Massachusetts,  but 
not  even  Peter  Manners,  of  whom  she  made  inquiries, 
could  or  would  tell  her  anything  about  it. 

Sometimes,  when  she  was  feeling  particularly  low 
and  blue  she  wondered  if  he  ever  saw  anything  of  that 
awful  Mrs.  Herriot. 

Harassed  and  miserable  in  the  present,  and  dread- 
fully troubled  about  the  future,  Diana  showed  a  game- 
ness  which  would  have  impressed  all  who  knew  her  if 
they  had  known  that  it  was  gameness.  But  her  friends 
thought  that  she  was  living  quietly  in  the  country  with 
Tarn  because  she  wanted  to.  Restless  almost  to  mad- 
ness at  times  she  showed  an  outward  patience  and 
cheerfulness  that  must  have  caused  the  Recording 
Angel  to  look  up  the  record  that  he  had  kept  of  her 
since  the  day  she  was  born  and  wonder  if  he  ought  not 
to  erase  the  N.  G.  which  he  had  pencilled  in  the  margin 
on  hearing  of  her  divorce  and  substitute  a  question 
mark. 

If  she  had  not  found  outlets  for  her  energy,  Diana 
might  well  have  perished.  Fortunately  there  were 
many  things  in  which  she  had  never  taken,  and  did 
not  yet  take,  the  slightest  interest  that  simply  had  to 
be  done.  There  were  such  things  that  Frank,  or  in  his 
absence  Mrs.  Langham,  had  always  attended  to.  In 


288  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

the  old  days  Diana,  if  she  happened  to  ba  the  one  to 
discover  that  "that  place  in  the  roof"  was  leaky  again, 
had  felt  a  glow  of  cleverness  and  efficiency.  Now, 
however,  she  not  only  had  to  learn  of  the  leak  but 
to  interview  the  carpenter,  an  interminable  person. 
Grounds  have  to  be  kept  in  order;  hedges  trimmed, 
lawns  cut.  The  gardener,  no  longer  directed  or 
praised,  took  less  trouble  with  the  garden.  It  was  no 
longer  full  of  flowers.  Now  gardens  have  to  be  full 
of  flowers,  and  so  Diana's  garden,  that  had  been 
Frank's,  had  to  be  filled. 

A  governess,  any  stranger  in  the  house,  would  have 
been  intolerable  at  this  time,  and  one  morning  Diana 
decided  very  positively,  but  with  painful  misgivings, 
that  Tarn  must  have  lessons,  and  that  she  herself  must 
administer  them  to  her. 

Very  gradually  Diana  began  to  take  an  interest  and 
a  pride  in  the  hundred  and  one  domestic  items  that 
had  come  down  upon  her.  And  toward  the  end  of  the 
season  the  grounds  and  the  garden  had  made  a  real 
place  for  themselves  in  her  life.  She  often  thought 
about  them  when  she  didn't  have  to.  If  this  was  a 
blessing  there  was  a  curse  mixed  up  with  it.  For  when- 
ever her  natural  good  taste  began  involuntarily  to  con- 
sider certain  radical  changes  that  ought  to  be  made  if 
the  place  was  to  fulfill  its  possibilities,  she  ran  against 
the  solid  rock  that  to  effect  these  changes  would 
either  take  more  money  than  she  could  afford,  or  sev- 
eral seasons  of  vegetable  growth.  She  could  not  give 
them  even  one  more  season.  By  the  time  the  lilacs 
bloomed  again  she  would  be  Mrs.  Ogden  Fenn,  and 
she  would  not  be  the  mistress  of  these  grounds  or  that 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  289 

garden  any  more.  It  would  be  years  and  years  before 
they  could  even  have  a  little  place  of  their  own  any- 
where and  that,  as  Diana  sometimes  reflected,  was 
tough  luck  just  when  she  was  getting  to  like  the  coun- 
try and  to  learn  something  about  it. 

That  Ogden  Fenn  would  ever  consent  to  be  benefited 
in  the  slightest  degree  by  the  alimony  which  Diana  re- 
ceived from  her  husband  was  unthinkable.  And  there- 
fore unless  his  affairs  prospered  very  much  more  than 
they  were  at  the  moment  prospering  they  would  be 
poor  people.  Only  Tam  should  benefit  by  the  ali- 
mony, after  the  wedding,  and  what  sums  remained 
over  after  paying  for  her  needs  should  be  put  in  the 
savings  bank  for  her.  Ogden  himself  had  suggested 
that  arrangement. 

Late  in  February  Diana  moved  to  town.  In  one  of 
his  letters  to  Tam,  Manners  had  written,  "Tell  Mum- 
sey  that  I  sha'n't  want  the  apartment  any  more,  and 
that  in  case  she  does,  the  rent  has  been  paid  till  the 
first  of  June."  And  upon  reading  that,  Tam  had  asked 
a  child's  question : 

"And  when  you  move  into  the  apartment  will  Fahzer 
move  out  here?" 

Why  two  such  charming  gods  as  her  father  and 
mother  did  not  live  together  any  longer  was  a  great 
puzzle  to  Tam.  She  had  been  told  that  she  should  see 
her  father  very  often,  but  she  had  seen  him  very  sel- 
dom and  she  loved  him  very  much. 

That  beloved  father  was  working  very  hard  on  the 
murals  for  the  big  grill  room.  He  had  taken  a  studio 
apartment  in  a  free  and  easy  part  of  the  city  and  his 
former  haunts  knew  him  no  more.  He  had  broken 


290  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

with  Mrs.  Herriot,  and  she  had  made  the  break  easy 
for  him.  "I  tried  my  best  to  make  him  happy,"  she 
confided  to  Miss  LeNeuf,  "and  somehow  I  feel  as  if 
I  had  only  succeeded  in  degrading  him.  It's  best  as  it 
is.  I'd  do  anything  in  the  world  for  him,  and  he'd  do 
a  whole  lot  for  me." 

"Exit  Frank  Manners,"  said  Miss  LeNeuf;  "en- 
ter  ?" 

"Delancey  Stairs,"  said  Mrs.  Herriot  in  a  business- 
like voice;  "once  he's  lord  and  master  he'll  be  a  jealous 
proposition,  but  I  like  lots  of  things  about  him.  He's 
open-handed  for  one  thing  and  simply  rolling.  You 
may  not  believe  it,  my  dear,  but  I  am  not  as  young  as  I 
used  to  be,  and  I  have  sworn  a  solemn  oath  that  the 
nest  in  which  I  finally  wrinkle  and  shrink  to  death  shall 
be  well  feathered." 

As  they  drove  away  to  the  station,  Diana,  who  was 
very  thickly  veiled,  did  not  look  back  at  the  house. 
She  held  one  of  Tarn's  hands  very  lightly  in  both  hers. 
This  did  not  prevent  Tarn  from  looking  back. 

"When  Fahzer  moves  out,"  she  said,  "he  will  look 
after  my  chickens." 

Diana  made  no  comment.  Her  beautiful  brows 
tightly  knitted  behind  the  thick  veil,  she  was  exercis- 
ing every  ounce  of  control  which  she  possessed.  She 
felt  like  a  criminal  going  to  execution.  In  the  train 
this  thought  occurred  to  her: 

"Why  must  I  marry  him?  Why  couldn't  I  make  a 
good  life  just  for  Tarn  and  me?  We  could  look  for- 
ward to  Westbury  in  the  Spring.  I  could  tinker  with 
the  place.  I'm  getting  to  like  tinkering.  .  .  .  Oh,  I 
must  marry  him.  I  love  him,  and  I  have  promised, 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  291 

and  so  help  me  God  I  will  not  spare  myself  in  any  way 
to  make  him  happy.  The  poor  lad,  he  has  only  me !" 

And  she  did  love  him,  but  already  she  knew  that  she 
could  not  always  love  him,  that  that  beautiful  and  eter- 
nal love  upon  the  certainty  of  which  she  had  dared  to 
make  so  much  unhappiness  for  others,  was  a  will-o'- 
the-wisp. 

The  love  that  she  had  for  him  had  developed  certain 
practical  and  matter-of-fact  sides.  She  remembered 
that  she  had  had  the  same  symptoms  in  that  much 
longer  period  during  which  she  had  slowly  fallen  out 
of  love  with  her  husband. 

Fenn  had  sent  many  roses  to  her  apartment;  far 
more  than  he  could  afford.  There  was  a  love-letter 
with  them.  She  was  very  much  touched.  His  appeal 
was  not  so  much  to  the  spoiled  and  passionate  school- 
girl now,  as  to  the  indulgent  mother. 

When  Tarn  had  had  supper  and  been  put  to  bed 
early,  Diana  locked  herself  in  her  room  and  broke 
down. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

A  BRISK  and  smart  maid,  almost  white,  brought  Mrs. 
Harriot  the  morning  papers,  and  withdrew  discreetly. 

Mrs.  Herriot's  bedroom  was  really  very  charming, 
though  a  trifle  overdressed.  There  was  too  much 
muslin,  and  the  muslin  was  too  much  flounced.  But 
the  blues  of  the  room  were  delicious  blues,  the  gilt 
toilette  articles  by  Keller  had  a  strength  of  design  and 
delicacy  of  execution  that  were  almost  Greek,  and  the 
May  sunlight  poured  in  through  a  whole  broadside  of 
windows. 

There  were  too  many  mirrors  in  the  room,  but  Mrs. 
Herriot,  who  could  see  herself  at  the  moment  in  most 
of  them,  would  have  looked  charming  in  them  all.  She 
had  been  out  of  bed  to  do  her  hair,  and  she  was  back 
in  bed,  sitting  up  against  the  most  snowy  and  delectable 
pillows.  She  had  on  a  blue  silk  dressing  jacket,  and  a 
lace  cap.  The  mere  fact  that  a  man  could  be  heard 
singing  loudly  under  a  shower-bath  not  two  rooms 
away,  did  not  detract  from  the  essential  modesty  and 
discretion  of  her  appearance. 

Her  face  had  a  happy  look.  She  had  done  well  to 
advance  Delancey  Stairs  to  the  position  of  favorite. 
He  had  spent  buckets  of  money  on  her,  and  she  had 
so  impressed  him  with  her  essential  sweetness  and  hon- 
esty, that  he  had  spoken  more  than  once  of  "salting 
away"  enough  money  in  trust  for  her  to  keep  her  from 

292 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  293 

future  financial  worries.  He  had  not  only  spoken  of 
this,  but  had  said  definitely  that  he  was  going  to  do  it 
when  he  "got  around  to  it." 

She  skimmed  through  the  paper,  without  being  ar- 
rested by  any  particular  item,  until  she  came  to  the 
paragraph  in  which  it  was  briefly  announced  that  at 
noon  that  day  Mrs.  Diana  Langham  Manners  would 
become  Mrs.  Ogden  Fenn. 

It  was  not  at  first  any  thought  of  Frank  Manners's 
tragic  feelings  which  caused  Mrs.  Herriot's  eyebrows 
to  shoot  upward,  and  her  lower  lip  to  disappear  be- 
neath her  upper  teeth.  It  was  the  name  Ogden  Fenn. 

But  her  second  thought  was  for  Manners,  all  for 
Manners.  A  phrase  jumped  into  her  brain  and  re- 
peated itself. 

"This  will  hit  my  wild  goose  where  he  lives.  .  .  . 
This  will  hit  my  wild  goose  where  he  lives." 

She  beat  with  her  little  fist  upon  her  knee.  Then 
she  glanced  toward  the  door  of  the  bathroom.  Stairs 
had  not  taken  the  trouble  to  push  it  all  the  way  to. 
That  was  why  the  singing,  which  had  ceased  now,  had 
sounded  so  loud. 

She  reached  for  the  telephone  which  stood  near  the 
head  of  her  bed,  and  her  eye  on  the  bathroom  door 
began  to  speak  into  the  mouthpiece.  But  she  did  not 
take  the  receiver  from  the  hook. 

"Ludlow  2507  ...  Is  this  Mrs.  Boster's  house?  .  .  . 
What?  .  .  .  And  she's  all  alone?  .  .  .  Her  brother 
couldn't  come?  .  .  .  Why,  Bridget,  how  terrible!  .  .  . 
This  is  Mrs.  Herriot  speaking.  ...  I  will  come  just 
as  soon  as  I  am  dressed  .  .  .  very  low?  Anha  .  .  . 
Who's  her  doctor?  .  .  Anha  .  .  O  course!  .  .  You 


294  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

say  she's  been  asking  for  me?  ...  You  tell  her  that  I'll 
come,  and  that  I'll  stay  as  long  as  she  needs  me." 

Her  eyes,  very  bright  with  invention,  Mrs.  Herriot 
put  back  the  telephone.  Then  she  called  to  Stairs. 

"Oh,  Delancey  .  .  .  Can  you  speak  with  me  a  mo- 
ment?" 

Mr.  Stairs  had  nearly  completed  his  toilette.  He 
was  eminently  presentable;  a  tall,  thick  man,  with  a 
handsome  and  clever  face  above  a  somewhat  heavy  and 
sullen  jaw.  He  was  younger  than  Mrs.  Herriot,  but 
he  had  the  look  of  a  much  older  man. 

"To  hear,"  he  said  slowly,  "is  to  obey." 

"My  great  friend,  Mrs.  Boster,"  she  began  glibly, 
"has  been  taken  suddenly  ill  .  .  ." 

"Did  you  think,"  he  interrupted  firmly  but  with  his 
usual  placid  deliberation,  "that  you  would  run  less  risk 
of  catching  her  disease  if  you  left  the  receiver  on  the 
hook?" 

"You  looked  through  the  door." 

"Through  the  aperture  between  the  door  and  the 
door  frame.  I  saw  the  whole  performance.  It  was  Al. 
If  I  had  not  looked  I  should  have  been  most  grossly 
deceived.  .  .  .  Why  did  you  do  it?" 

"Oh,  it  seemed  the  easiest  way,  I  suppose.  Shall  I 
tell  you  the  truth?" 

"You  shall." 

This  was  ominous,  but  she  managed  to  look  uncon- 
cerned. 

"I  want  to  get  out  of  dining,  and  a  roof  to-night.  I 
want  to  be  free  to-night." 

"Why,  Elaine?" 

"Because  a  friend  that  I  love  is  in  terrible  trouble." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  295 

"A  woman." 

"No." 

"Whatman?" 

"Delancey,  dear,  if  I  tell  you  the  whole  truth,  you'll 
not  .  .  ." 

"Gossip?     It  would  be  so  like  me." 

"The  man  is  Frank  Manners.  His  wife  that  was 
is  going  to  be  married  to-day,  and  Frank  loves  her  so 
I'm  afraid  he  may  kill  himself.  I  want  to  be  with  him. 
I  know  I  can  help  him,  and  make  him  feel  not  so  badly 
about  it." 

"You  will  do  exactly  as  you  please." 

"Delancey,  we  are  nothing  to  each  other." 

"You  lived  together.  You  were  the  unnamed  co- 
respondent." 

"He  liated  it.    Every  bit  of  it." 

"Look  at  yourself  in  these  various  mirrors,  my  dear 
Elaine,  and  tell  me  that  again." 

"Delancey,  please  be  generous.  I  swear  to  you 
there's  nothing  more  possible  between  him  and  me." 

"You  love  him?" 

She  thought  for  a  moment.    Then  she  said: 

"I  don't  know.  I  wanted  to  live  with  him  always. 
But  living  with  me  made  him  feel  mean  and  degraded, 
so  I  engineered  a  break  that  was  easy  for  him.  So  ... 
I  guess  I  do  love  him." 

"You  love  him.  How  do  you  propose  to  comfort 
him?" 

"I  don't  know  that  I  can.  But  I  know  something 
that  might  comfort  him — oh,  a  mouse  of  a  thing,  but 
it  might  be  a  lion.  If  I  can't  help  him  through  this, 
nobody  can." 


296  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

Delancey  Stairs  came  and  sat  on  the  edge  of  the 
bed. 

"Elaine,"  he  said.  "You  will  do  as  you  please,  of 
course.  What  you  please,  however,  seems  to  settle 
down  to  a  choice  between  two  men.  I  intended  to  do 
something  rather  handsome  for  you.  Don't  forget 
that  in  your  calculations." 

"There  are  no  calculations  in  this,  Delancey.  The 
man  I  love  is  facing  hell,  and  I've  got  to  see  him 
through." 

"Even  if  it  costs  you  ten  thousand  a  year." 

She  looked  at  him  steadily. 

"Yes,  Delancey.  Even  if  it  costs  me  ten  million  a 
year.  I  think  I  can  help  him  and  I've  got  to  try." 

After  that  neither  of  them  spoke  for  some  time. 
Mrs.  Herriot  broke  the  silence. 

"You've  no  cause  to  feel  jealous." 

"But  I  do,"  he  said.  "And  it's  hell.  I'm  crazy  mad 
about  you.  Don't  you  know  that  ?  You  could  do  any- 
thing with  me.  But  you  can't  do  things  to  me.  Not 
you  nor  any  other  woman." 

He  walked  slowly  back  into  the  bathroom,  and 
emerged  in  a  moment,  slowly  removing  his  coat  from 
a  stretcher,  put  on  the  coat,  surveyed  himself  for  a 
moment  in  a  mirror,  and  then  turned  to  Mrs.  Herriot. 

"Are  you  dining  with  me  to-night  or  not?" 

The  tears  began  to  run  down  her  cheeks. 

"Please  be  generous,"  she  said.  "I'll  come  if  I  can. 
But  if  I  find  him,  and  he  needs  me — don't  you  see  I 
just  couldn't  come?" 

"If  you  are  not  there  at  eight  sharp,"  he  said,  "I'm 
through  with  you." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  297 

He  turned  and  without  another  word  walked  solidly 
and  definitely  out  of  the  room. 

It  is  perhaps  curious  to  think  that  during  the  night 
he  had  said  the  silliest  things  to  her  in  a  sort  of  baby 
talk. 

Mrs.  Herriot  dressed  and  drove  at  once  to  Frank 
Manners's  studio.  Failing  to  find  the  right  silver  in 
her  purse  she  stuffed  a  five  dollar  bill  into  the  driver's 
hand,  and  when  she  saw  the  look  of  astonishment  that 
came  into  his  face  at  her  refusal  to  wait  for  the  change, 
she  smiled  and  thought :  "It's  all  relative.  Five  dollars 
seems  big  to  him  for  a  short  ride.  What  would  he 
think  if  he  knew  that  it  was  costing  me  ten  thousand 
a  year  ?" 

She  entered  the  studio  building  carrying  her  brave 
little  head  high.  And  she  almost  collided  with  Peter 
Manners. 

"Why,  hello! — "  he  exclaimed. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Manners,  you've  been  with  Frank.  How 
is  he?" 

"He  didn't  want  me,"  said  Mr.  Manners.  "Poor 
fellow.  He  kicked  me  out." 

Mr.  Manners  was  wearing  a  high  hat  and  a  frock 
coat. 

"Are  you  going  to  the  wedding?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,  and  if  I  don't  hurry  .  .  ." 

She  rang  Frank  Manners's  door  bell,  and  waited 
five  minutes.  Then  she  rang  it  again.  She  kept 
ringing  it  at  intervals  for  nearly  three  hours.  She 
knew  that  he  wasn't  dead ;  because  from  time  to  time 
she  could  hear  the  sound  of  his  well-known  footsteps. 
Every  now  and  then  she  rested  a  little  while,  sitting 


298  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

on  the  top  step  of  the  flights  which  wound  around 
the  elevator  shaft. 

All  of  a  sudden  and  just  as  she  was  going  to  push 
the  bell  again  the  door  was  violently  opened.  But 
the  anger  in  Frank  Manners's  pale  face  swiftly  faded. 

She  looked  tired  out.  And  the  tears  were  streaming 
down  her  cheeks. 

"Why,  you  poor  little  thing,"  he  said.  "You  poor 
little  thing." 

She  snuffled  once  or  twice,  and  wiped  the  tears  from 
her  face. 

"I — I  came  to  tell  you  something — f-funny,"  she 
said.  "I  know  you'd  be  feeling  terrible — and  I 
thought  if  I  could  make  you  laugh  ..." 

He  made  her  sit  down  and  he  brought  her  a  glass 
of  water. 

"Drink  that,"  he  said.  7'And  then  for  God's  sake 
make  me  laugh." 

"You  see,"  she  said  presently,  "I  know  you  feel  too 
terrible,  and  I  thought  that  maybe  you  could  stand  it 
better  if  you  knew  that  Og — Ogden  Fenn  is  aw fully 
knock-kneed — just  like  a  woman,  and — and  snores." 

He  did  laugh;  but  a  harsh  ugly  laugh  in  the  top 
of  his  head.  It  was  own  cousin  to  hysterics.  She 
watched  him  in  an  agony  of  pity  and  fear.  But  her 
mind  worked  and  she  considered  what  she  should  do 
next  to  relieve  the  tension  which  threatened  to  snap 
his  nervous  system  to  pieces.  She  was  a  wise  little 
person  in  her  way  and  she  made  no  effort  to  place  his 
tragedy  in  a  more  favorable  light.  She  did  not  for 
instance  tell  him  that  she  knew  just  how  he  felt,  or 
that  he  wouldn't  mind  so  much  later  on.  On  the 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  299 

contrary  she  told  him  that  no  fluffy  frivolous  little 
person  like  herself  could  possibly  know  how  terribly 
he  felt.  And  when  he  said:  "Oh,  he  guessed  he'd 
live  through  it,"  she  said  very  simply,  "I  hope  to  God 
you  do,  Frank,  but  you  don't  look  as  if  you  stood  a 
ghost  of  a  chance." 

She  had  managed  to  pull  her  own  nerves  together 
and  she  tried  to  make  her  voice  sound  very  matter  of 
fact  and  practical.  His  rooms  were  in  disorder,  and 
when  she  had  taken  off  her  hat  and  gloves  she  started 
to  put  them  to  rights. 

"Have  you  been  drinking  a  lot,  Frank?"  she  asked. 

"The  last  few  days.  I  don't  suppose  it's  done  any 
good ;  but  I  don't  dare  stop." 

He  flopped  down  in  a  deep  chair  and  buried  his  face 
in  his  hands.  But  he  apologized  as  best  he  could. 

"I'm  all  right,"  he  said,  "only  I  can't  control  my 
nerves." 

She  paused  a  moment  from  her  work  of  restoring 
order,  and  stood  looking  at  him.  He  spoke  again,  and 
there  was  a  distinct  wailing  note  in  his  voice. 

"I  don't  see  how  I  am  to  get  through  tonight,"  he 
said.  "I  don't  see  that." 

The  hands  dropped  from  his  face.  He  turned  and 
looked  at  her,  his  eyes  full  of  horror. 

"Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  have  an  imagination?" 
he  asked.  He  leaped  then  suddenly  to  his  feet,  and 
pounding  his  left  fist  with  his  right.  "It  will  be  as  if 
I  was  in  the  same  room  with  them,"  he  cried,  "tied 
hand  and  foot.  And  all  the  lights  lighted  .  .  .  Oh, 
I  wish  I  had  gone  to  the  church  and  shot  him  as  they 
came  out,  and  shot  him  and  shot  him  and  shot  him  ..." 


300  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

She  glanced  at  the  clock  over  the  mantelpiece. 

"You  couldn't  get  there  in  time  now,  Frank,"  she 
said.  "But  don't  think  about  that  part.  He'll  get 
what's  coming  to  him.  He  can  no  more  hold  a  wom- 
an's love  than  he  can  keep  his  mouth  shut  when  he's 
asleep.  Adenoids,  likely." 

"How  do  you  know  so  much  about  him,  Elaine?" 
he  asked  with  a  lugubrious  show  of  interest. 

"Don't  ask  fool  questions,  Frank,"  she  answered. 
"Remember  the  life  I've  lived,  and  then  have  the 
politeness  to  forget  it.  Will  you  do  me  a  heap  big 
favor?" 

"I'll  try,  my  dear." 

"Will  you  lie  on  that  big  leather  sofa,  and  shut  your 
eyes  and  not  move  or  talk  till  I  get  the  rest  of  the 
place  tidied  up?" 

He  considered  this  proposal  for  a  moment.  Then 
he  said  "Ye-es,  but  I  want  a  drink  first." 

"I'll  bring  you  the  drink  myself,"  she  said,  "if  you'll 
do  me  my  favor  first." 

He  began  to  frown  a  little  at  being  crossed,  then 
laughed  mirthlessly  and  went  and  lay  down  on  the 
sofa. 

"Stretch  your  arms  and  legs,"  she  said,  "just  as 
hard  as  you  can  stretch  them ;  and  hold  them  stretched 
till  they  ache.  Then  let  go.  If  you  really  want  to 
relax  that's  the  way  to  do  it ...  And  shut  your  eyes." 

Mrs.  Herriot  did  not  confine  herself  entirely  to  put- 
ting the  rest  of  the  apartment  to  rights.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  she  went  straight  to  the  little  table  at  the  head 
of  Frank  Manners's  bed  and  pulled  open  the  drawer 
at  the  top.  This  contained  three  one  cent  pieces,  an 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  301 

automatic  pistol,  a  broken  rubber  band,  and  the  little 
bottle  of  quarter  grain  morphine  tablets  of  which  he 
had  once  told  her1.  She  drew  a  long  shuddering 
breath  of  relief.  The  morphine  was  snugly  sand- 
wiched between  two  layers  of  absorbent  cotton.  She 
pulled  the  cork  from  the  bottle,  picked  out  the  upper 
layer  of  cotton  with  a  hairpin,  and  shook  a  dozen  of 
the  tablets  into  the  palm  of  her  hand. 

All  but  one  of  these  she  hid  in  an  accessible  place 
and  then  she  went  to  the  dining-room  to  mix  the  drink 
that  she  had  promised  to  bring  him. 

That  first  drink  of  Mrs.  Herriot's  mixing  did  not 
affect  him  much;  but  the  second  did.  He  became 
much  calmer.  He  noticed  this  himself.  He  imagined, 
he  said,  that  pain  could  only  reach  a  certain  point  of 
intensity,  that  when  that  point  was  reached  the  nerves 
that  received  the  impression  of  pain  simply  struck. 
.  .  .  "And,"  he  added  with  sleepy  gallantry,  "you've 
had  a  lot  to  do  with  making  things  easier  to  bear. 
Come  and  sit  down  on  the  edge  of  this  sofa,  and  tell 
me  what  I  can  do  to  show  that  I  am  grateful." 

"If  you'd  go  to  sleep,  and  stay  asleep,  God  knows 
I'd  feel  fully  thanked,  Frank,  dear.  Couldn't  you?" 

He  shook  his  head,  or  rather  he  rolled  it  slowly 
from  side  to  side. 

"Elaine,"  he  said,  "I  don't  seem  to  care  much  at  all 
now.  .  .  .  And  so  that  dashing  lover,  the  home 
wrecker  has  badly  knocked  knees?" 

Mrs.  Herriot  nodded.  And  smoothed  back  the 
stray  hair  from  his  forehead.  It  was  more  than  half 
gray  now. 


302  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"Frank,"  she  said,  "she  had  no  real  good  reason  to 
do  what  she  did,  had  she?" 

"No  basic  reason,  Elaine.  I  had  a  chance  to  keep 
her  love  and  make  her  happy  and  somehow  I  couldn't 
use  it." 

"You  don't  feel  a  bit  bitter  against  her  any  more, 
do  you?" 

"Not  any  more.     Just  loving  and  sorry." 

"Well,  I  feel  bitter  against  her,  I  can  tell  you." 

"YOU?    Why?" 

His  drowsy  eyes  became  quite  round  with  wonder. 

"Oh,"  she  snapped.  "For  being  such  a  damned 
fool.  She  ought  to  be  punished." 

And  then  and  there  Mrs.  Herriot  made  up  her 
mind  to  punish  the  woman  who  had  so  wounded  her 
poor  Wild  Goose. 

"Frank,"  she  said,  "I'm  the  last  person  in  the  world 
to  recommend  strong  drink.  But  that  last  one  seems  to 
have  done  you  a  world  of  good.  How  about  one 
little  touch  more?" 

She  did  not  wait  for  his  answer  but  drifted  off 
smiling  with  a  long  empty  glass  in  her  hand.  Soon 
after  that  third  drink  he  fell  calmly  asleep.  It  was 
dark  when  he  partially  waked.  He  said  he  was  very 
thirsty,  "water  thirsty,"  his  mouth  was  dry  as  plaster. 
If  it  wasn't  for  that  he  thought  he  could  go  to  sleep 
again. 

Mrs.  Herriot  smiled  triumphantly  in  the  dark. 

"Suppose  you  go  and  get  into  bed,"  she  said,  "that's 
the  place  to  sleep,  and  I'll  bring  you  a  long  glass  of 
good  Croton  with  lots  of  ice  in  it." 

She  turned  on  the  lights,  and  watched  him  shamble 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  303 

sleepily  off  to  his  bedroom.  When  she  thought  that 
he  had  had  sufficient  time  to  undress  she  carried  the 
tall  glass  of  ice  water  to  his  door  and  knocked. 

He  was  lying  on  his  bed  fully  dressed.  He  could 
hardly  lift  his  eyelids.  After  a  few  swallows  of 
water  he  fell  sound  asleep. 

The  drug  seemed  to  have  erased  many  of  the  lines 
from  his  face  which  suffering  had  put  there.  His 
breathing  was  easy  and  natural ;  he  had  the  expression 
of  one  who  has  been  pleasantly  and  innocently 
amused. 

The  hands  of  a  traveling  clock  on  the  dressing- 
table  pointed  to  eight. 

"There  goes  my  ten  thousand  a  year  for  keeps," 
said  Mrs.  Herriot.  She  drew  one  long  sighing  breath, 
and  forthwith  dismissed  all  her  own  private  trouble 
from  her  head,  and  with  the  most  gratified  and  tender 
solicitude  took  Frank  Manners's  feet  in  her  lap  and 
began  to  unlace  his  shoes.  Somehow  or  other,  for  he 
was  a  big  man  and  she  was  little  and  not  very  strong, 
she  got  him  into  a  fresh  suit  of  pajamas  and  into  his 
bed.  Then  she  opened  as  many  windows  as  there  were, 
and  put  out  the  lights.  But  she  left  the  door  ajar 
so  that  she  could  go  in  and  out  without  disturbing 
him. 

She  found  some  note  paper  in  a  drawer  of  the 
writing-table,  and  she  sat  for  a  long  time  with  an  oc- 
casionally reinked  pen  poised  over  it  and  ready  to 
write.  Finally  she  made  a  beginning  and  pausing  only 
when  more  ink  was  needed  she  wrote  the  following 
note,  sealed  it  in  an  envelope  and  addressed  it  to  Mrs. 


304  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

Ogden  Fenn,   Westbury,   with  the  remark,    "A  note 
like  that  is  sure  to  find  her." 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  OGDEN  FENN: 

I  am  the  woman  who  helped  to  furnish  you  with  the 
grounds  upon  which  you  indignantly  and  righteously 
divorced  your  husband.  I  am  writing  to  you  for 
several  reasons:  (1)  To  ask  if  you  know  the  differ- 
ence between  a  salmon  and  a  carp?  Between  an  eagle 
and  a  puddle-duck? — and  to  tell  you  that  if  you 
don't  know  the  difference,  I  do.  (2)  To  say  that  you 
needn't  have  taken  the  trouble  to  find  out  for  yourself 
as  I  could  have  told  you  if  you  had  asked  me,  that  the 
puddle-duck  has  knock  knees  and  adenoids.  When 
he  is  sleeping,  and  you  are  trying  to,  the  latter  are 
distinctly  audible.  (3)  To  inform  you  that  hell  is 
full  of  women  like  you,  and  that  I  hope  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  that  you  suffer  all  the  unhappiness 
you  deserve  in  this  world  and  the  next. 

ELAINE  HERRIOT. 

When  the  bell  rang  and  Mrs.  Herriot  opened  the 
door  she  expected  to  see  Peter  Manners.  It  was 
not  Mr.  Manners,  however,  whom,  to  her  fear  and 
astonishment,  she  found  herself  facing,  but  Delancey 
Stairs.  She  had  for  a  moment  the  ridiculous  belief 
that  he  had  turned  Sicilian  and  had  come  to  murder 
her.  Her  heart  beat  like  that  of  a  wild  bird  that  has 
been  caught  in  the  hand.  But  his  slow  deliberate 
utterance  and  the  fact  that  his  expression  though 
grave  and  troubled  was  not  stern,  brought  the  color 
back  to  her  face. 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  305 

"I  couldn't  rest,"  he  said,  "until  I  had  seen  you 
again.  Could  you  come  on  the  landing  a  minute 
and  talk  with  me?" 

"You'd  better  come  in.  And  I'm  glad  that  you 
have  come.  It's  lonely  work  now.  Frank  has  gone 
to  bed  and  to  sleep,  thank  God." 

He  followed  her  into  the  big  studio. 

"If  I  have  done  you  an  injustice,"  he  said,  "I  want 
to  know  it." 

"You  have,"  she  said,  "but  it's  all  right.  I  don't 
blame  you.  I'm  so  glad  you  came." 

"I  had  to  fight  myself  hard.  I  am  jealous  as  hell 
by  nature,  and  I  jump  at  conclusions." 

"Take  your  coat  off,  and  sit  in  that  brown  chair. 
It's  ugly,  but  very  comfy." 

"To  hear  is  to  obey,"  he  said,  and  when  he  had  sat 
down,  she  told  him  something  of  her  experiences  in 
giving  first  aid  to  Frank  Manners. 

"Three  Iwurs!"  she  repeated,  "I  kept  ringing  that 
darned  bell  for  three  hours.  And  when  he  did  open 
the  door  he  looked  murder.  But  when  he  saw  it  was 
only  me,  he  seemed  sort  of  dazed  and  somehow  or 
other  let  me  in.  I  could  see  at  once  that  he'd  been 
drinking  hard — not  drunk,  the  next  stage — saturated 
— preserved.  And  God,  what  a  face — the  color  of 
oak  before  it's  oiled,  a  whity  gray,  and  his  eyelids 
twitching  and  jumping.  .  .  Just  the  same  I  made  him 
laugh,  almost  turned  into  hysterics  though.  .  .  .  Well 
it  was  evident  that  he'd  locked  himself  up  here,  ind 
that  nobody  had  been  allowed  in  to  tidy  up.  His 
bed  hadn't  been  made,  his  clothes  hadn't  been  hung  up, 
his  shaving  brush  was  still  full  of  lather,  the  bath 


3o6  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

towels  hadn't  been  picked  up.  He'd  cooked  himself 
some  bacon  and  eggs,  early  this  morning  probably, 
and  he'd  dropped  one  raw  egg  in  front  of  the  stove. 
I  promised  him  a  drink  if  he'd  lie  down  till  I'd  finished 
tidying  up.  He  consented  to  that,  and  then  of  course 
I  beat  it  for  the  morphine." 

"The  what?" 

"He  never  touched  morphine  in  his  life,  but  I  knew 
he  had  some,  and  it's  the  kind  of  thing  you'd  keep 
near  you  if  you  happened  to  have  it,  and  were  in 
trouble.  Well,  I  thought  I  might  have  to  hunt  high 
and  low,  but  I  took  a  chance  on  the  drawer  of  the 
table  by  his  bed,  and  there  it  was — luck!" 

"How  much  did  you  give  him?" 

"A  quarter  of  a  grain  at  first.  Three  quarters  al- 
together. And  now  he  doesn't  know  that  there's  any 
trouble  in  the  world." 

"He'll  know  to-morrow  ...  I  think  I'd  better  look 
at  him.  Three-quarters  of  a  grain  might  hurt  some 
men." 

When  they  returned  from  Manners's  bedroom 
Stairs  had  the  bottle  of  morphine  in  his  hand. 

"I  shall  take  the  liberty,"  he  said,  "of  having  some- 
thing harmless  substituted  for  these  things.  A  man 
in  his  state  ought  not  to  have  morphine  lying  around 
loose.  If  he  ever  finds  out  what  made  him  feel  sleepy 
and  serene,  he'll  want  more.  And  if  he  finds  out 
to-morrow  when  he  wakes  up  and  feels  the  way  he  is 
going  to  feel,  he'll  want  a  lot  more." 

"Will  he  be  very  sick?" 

"A  big  dose  of  morphine  on  top  of  two  or  three 
days'  hard  drinking  ought  to  make  him  so  sick  that 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  307 

he  won't  care  how  many  wives  divorce  him.  ...  I 
sha'n't  be  long.  And  by  the  way,  are  you  going  to 
spend  the  night  here?" 

"I  intended  to;  but  it  doesn't  seem  as  if  there  was 
anything  more  that  I  could  do." 

"Feel  like  a  little  spree !" 

"If  you  say  so." 

He  leaned  suddenly  toward  her,  and  patted  her 
shoulder. 

"You'll  be  happier  staying  right  here,"  he  said. 
"Won't  you?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  and  with  a  magnanimous  impulse. 
"I  never  liked  you  as  much  as  I  do  this  very  minute. 
You  are  big  and  generous." 

"If  that's  so,"  said  he,  "I  am  very  thankful  that  I 
did  some  hard  thinking  after  I  left  you  this  morning. 
I'll  get  this  stuff  changed  and  come  back  and  sit  with 
you  a  while.  You're  a  good  girl,  and  I'm  crazy  about 
you." 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

DIANA'S  determination  to  suffer  all  things  in  her 
new  life  without  flinching  was  tested  before  she  had 
been  Mrs.  Ogden  Fenn  an  hour.  Matrimony  worked 
immediate  wonders  in  the  shy  and  self-effacing  Mr. 
Fenn.  The  poor  fellow  felt  doubtless  that  being  now 
the  head  of  a  family  he  must  show  himself  self-re- 
liant and  develop  initiative.  Or  it  may  be  that  he 
was  not  without  that  palaeolithic  instinct  of  the  con- 
quering male  to  show  off.  To  be  brief  Diana  found 
that  the  hero,  the  divine  lover,  to  whom  she  was  now 
irrevocably  married,  was  a  little  mite  pompous.  He 
made  it  a  little  too  obvious  to  persons  who  could  not 
have  been  in  the  least  concerned  that  he  was  her 
husband. 

In  due  time  Diana  received  the  letter  which  Elaine 
Herriot  had  written  her.  And  it  had  upon  her  the 
effect  which  Mrs.  Herriot  had  intended  that  it  should 
have.  For  though  Diana  destroyed  the  substance  of 
the  letter  by  fire  its  spirit  she  could  not  destroy.  She 
never  mentioned  either  the  letter  or  Mrs.  Herriot  to 
her  husband.  But  they  both  gnawed  at  her  pride  and 
her  heart. 

It  has  been  said  that  Diana  had  a  good  eye  for  fit- 
ness and  for  proportion  and  that  she  was,  when  in 
her  right  mind,  exceedingly  fastidious.  The  fact 
therefore  that  her  new  husband's  legs  were  very  badly 

308 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  309 

knock-kneed  actually  helped  to  undermine  the  love 
and  admiration  that  she  had  for  him;  that  and  the 
pompousness  which  he  had  developed — a  trick  of 
clearing  the  throat  before  saying  important  things — 
a  condescension  in  his  manner  toward  servants,  in- 
stead of  that  perfect  simplicity  and  naturalness  which 
marks  those  who  are  really  well-bred. 

It  developed  also  that  he  was  very  jealous  of  her 
old  friends,  especially  the  men.  It  gave  him  no  pleas- 
ure to  learn  that  she  had  had  lunch  with  Peter  Man- 
ners, or  had  met  Montgomery  Stairs  just  outside  of 
Altman's  and  walked  a  few  blocks  with  him.  And  of 
course,  all  that  was  very  natural.  When  a  man  wins 
another  man's  wife  he  wins  a  woman,  who,  no  matter 
whose  wife  she  is,  can  be  won.  Diana  having  been 
false  to  one  set  of  marriage  vows  was  not  to  be  trusted 
quite  so  implicitly  in  a  new  set  as  a  woman  of  similar 
beauty,  breeding  and  temperament  who  was  trying 
them  for  the  first  time.  By  telling  her  a  little  too 
often  how  completely  he  trusted  her,  Mr.  Fenn  proved 
to  his  sensitive  bride  that  his  trust  in  her  was  as  much 
policy  as  instinct. 

The  poor  fellow  was  desperately  in  love,  desperately 
anxious  to  please,  and  desperately  anxious  to  increase 
his  income  so  that  there  should  be  no  great  descent  for 
her  in  the  scale  of  living.  From  the  beginning  things 
went  badly  for  him.  He  did  not  please  her  as  a  hus- 
band nearly  as  much  as  he  had  pleased  her  as  a  lover. 
And  he  suspected  this  to  be  the  case  without  being 
sure  of  it.  He  could  not  but  feel  that  at  times  she  was 
making  unfavorable  comparisons  in  the  back  of  her 
head.  That  he  should  only  have  suspected  these 


3io  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

things  is  to  praise  Diana's  nerve  and  power  to  keep 
good  resolutions  to  the  sky.  For  almost  she  would 
have  killed  herself  sooner  than  let  the  world  or  Fenn 
perceive  that  the  mad,  foolish,  selfish  thing  she  had 
done  was  a  failure  from  the  start.  Fenn  might  well 
have  trusted  her  utterly.  She  had  learned  her  lesson. 
She  would  never  again  indulge  in  one  of  those  harm- 
less flirtations,  or  any  other  kind  of  a  flirtation.  She 
was  a  married  woman  in  all  the  best  meanings  of  that 
expression.  But  in  her  heart  she  soon  wished  that 
she  had  not  been  so  long  in  mastering  her  lesson. 
It  would  have  been  so  much  easier,  and  so  much  more 
distinguished  to  have  been  a  good  wife  to  Frank 
Manners. 

The  first  thing  to  make  itself  felt  as  a  definite  is- 
sue between  Diana  and  Fenn  was  money ;  and  the  next 
thing  was  Tarn.  It  was  during  the  first  winter  of  their 
marriage  that  Fenn,  who  was  quite  desperately  hard 
up,  hinted  that  some  of  the  handsome  alimony  which 
Diana  received  from  Frank  Manners  should  be  used 
for  the  common  good.  But  Diana  proved  deaf  to 
the  suggestion. 

"I  insisted,"  she  said,  "that  I  wouldn't  use  one 
penny  of  his  money  for  anyone's  benefit  but  Tarn's. 
And  I  won't.  I'll  starve  first.  As  it  is  I  sometimes 
think  that  her  savings  bank  account  is  smaller  than  it 
ought  to  be  and  her  contribution  to  our  joint  expenses 
larger.  You  were  sure  that  there  would  be  no  diffi- 
culty about  money.  There  mustn't  be.  I'll  take  some 
more  thin  parings  off  the  cost  of  living,  but  that  is  all 
that  I  can  do.  We  are  nearly  at  the  core  as  it  is. 
Don't  think  that  I  mind.  I  don't.  We  always  said 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  311 

that  love  was  the  only  thing  that  mattered.  I'm  game 
to  make  that  good  if  you  are." 

Of  course  he  was.  And  the  conversation  dissolved 
into  warm  embraces  and  protestations  of  eternal  love. 

Somewhere  deep  down  in  Ogden  Fenn  there  was 
engendered,  however,  a  feeling  of  resentment  against 
Tarn.  She  paid  her  way  and  she  had  money  in  the 
bank.  He  had  nothing  that  he  could  call  his  own  in  the 
bank  and  was  running  a  little  into  debt.  Furthermore 
although  the  child  seemed  to  like  him  well  enough  he 
could  not  win  her  confidence.  She  had  inherited  re- 
serve from  her  mother  and  the  power  not  to  speak 
what  was  in  her  mind.  She  wasn't  happy.  Very 
pleasant  ways  of  life  had  been  changed  for  ways  that 
were  not  nearly  so  pleasant.  It  would  not  be  fair  to 
say  that  she  was  unhappy.  As  she  grew  older,  he 
thought,  she  would  make  an  idol  of  her  father  and 
judge  the  man  who  had  separated  her  from  him  very 
sharply.  Already  she  knew  that  in  some  vague  way 
he  had  been  grossly  outraged  and  wronged. 

The  little  apartment  which  they  inhabited  was 
smart  and  attractive,  as  was  everything  that  Diana 
touched.  It  was  as  much  like  a  home  as  an  arrange- 
ment of  hat  boxes  can  be.  And  it  was  never  just  the 
right  temperature. 

Soon  after  Christmas  the  Fenn's  began  to  worry 
about  the  summer.  Diana  would  have  preferred  to 
remain  in  the  city;  but  for  Tam  that  was  out  of  the 
question.  It  was  decided  finally  that  Diana  and  Tam 
should  inhabit  the  little  house  at  Combers  and  that 
Fenn  should  come  to  them  for  the  week  ends  and  for 
two  solid  weeks  in  August.  To  facilitate  the  some- 


312  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

what  difficult  commuting  and  marketing  he  decided  to 
buy  a  second  hand  jitney.  He  felt  that  he  had  a  bent 
for  mechanics  and  that  he  was  just  the  kind  of  man 
who  by  a  little  weekly  tinkering  could  keep  a  motor 
in  good  running  order. 

It  was  already  hot  when  Diana  and  her  little 
daughter  left  the  city  for  good.  They  had  made  sev- 
eral previous  trips  to  Combers  in  the  jitney,  fatiguing 
all  day  affairs,  to  put  the  house  to  rights  and  to  get 
their  luggage  moved  without  troubling  the  railroads 
about  anything  but  the  big  trunks,  and  during  these 
trips  had  become  closer  and  dearer  to  each  other  than 
they  had  ever  been  before. 

In  almost  every  way  Combers  was  a  change  for  the 
better;  the  surrounding  mountain  scapes  seized,  filled 
and  satisfied  the  eye.  Unless  the  atmosphere  itself 
chose  to  be  articulate  the  nights  were  as  still  as  they 
were  cool  and  fresh. 

Of  course  there  wasn't  much  to  do,  and  there  were 
no  neighbors  of  the  kind  to  which  Diana  had  been  ac- 
customed; but  since  she  was  gregarious  she  soon  be- 
gan to  make  acquaintances  among  the  villagers,  and 
in  some  instances  to  lay  the  foundations  of  real 
friendships.  Some  of  the  older  women  who  had 
known  great  troubles  and  weathered  them  were  es- 
pecially delightful,  and  wise.  And  it  occurred  to 
Diana  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  that  the  higher 
virtues,  loyalty,  steadfastness,  willingness  to  bear 
children,  and  cheerfulness  are  not  only  their  own  re- 
ward, but  the  greatest  reward  to  be  had  in  the  world. 

The  more  familiar  she  became  with  the  history  of 
this  woman  or  that,  the  less  pleasant  she  found  it  to 


THE   WILD    GOOSE  313 

appear  before  the  tribunal  of  her  own  conscience. 
There  were  women  in  Combers  who  through  thick 
and  thin  had  stuck  to  the  worst  kind  of  husbands,  and 
had  done  right  so  thoroughly,  patiently  and  unflinch- 
ingly as  in  the  end  to  shame  their  worse  halves  into 
decent  human  conduct. 

Diana's  history  became  more  or  less  known,  and  the 
women  of  Combers  took  it  for  granted  that  since  she 
had  divorced  her  husband  the  wretchedness  and  cruelty 
that  she  had  had  to  put  up  with  must  have  been  far 
worse  than  anything  ever  openly  known  in  that  neigh- 
borhood, and  among  themselves  surrounded  her  beau- 
tiful head  with  a  halo  of  martyrdom. 

"When  I  think  what  that  poor  woman  must  have 
gone  through!"  sighed  Mrs.  Van  Buren,  who  be  it 
said  had  borne  her  husband  nine  children,  and  more 
than  once  during  her  pregnancies  had  been  knocked 
down  and  beaten. 

Beatings  and  knockings  down  she  took  for  granted 
in  Diana's  case,  and  her  imagination  strove  to  con- 
ceive of  these  infinitely  worse  things  which  had  driven 
the  lovely  matron  into  the  divorce  court.  Horrible, 
unspeakable  things,  they  must  have  been.  The  kind 
of  things  that  most  people  don't  even  know  anything 
about. 

Diana  felt  the  sympathy,  for  it  was  hinted  rather 
than  spoken,  and  at  times  she  longed  to  make  a  clean 
breast  of  her  real  claims  to  sympathy  and  stop  sailing 
under  false  colors. 

"What  would  they  think  of  me,"  she  wondered, 
"if  I  told  them  that  I  divorced  my  husband  for  no 
better  reason  than  that  I  thought  I  wanted  a  different 


314  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

one,  and  that,  God  help  me,  I  didn't  really  want  the 
different  one  nearly  as  much  as  I  thought  I  did,  and 
had  every  reason  to  be  contented  and  happy  with  the 
other." 

For  Tarn  and  Diana  the  jitney  worked  overtime. 
The  little  girl's  legs  were  not  yet  long  enough  to 
reach  the  foot  pedals,  but  she  learned  to  steer  the  car 
and  to  work  the  throttle.  They  explored  the  surround- 
ing country  most  thoroughly,  and  as  friendships  de- 
veloped often  carried  two  or  three  village  children  and 
a  picnic  lunch  in  the  back  seat. 

The  house  being  badly  in  need  of  a  garden,  Diana 
hired  a  man  to  clear  a  favorable  patch  of  ground  of 
rocks  and  brush  so  that  it  could  be  spaded,  levelled, 
and  put  into  flowers  and  vegetables  another  year.  She 
would  have  liked  to  do  all  this  work  herself,  a  little  at 
a  time,  and  ordinarily  she  would  have  had  the  neces- 
sary strength  and  energy.  But  at  this  time  Diana  who 
was  beginning  to  look  thin  in  the  face,  and  thick 
through  the  waist,  spent  most  of  her  spare  time  in 
sewing. 


CHAPTER    XXIV 

FRANK  MANNER'S  grief,  passion,  jealousy,  despair 
and  dissipation  soon  wore  themselves  out.  And  for 
a  long  while  he  was  not  nearly  as  unhappy  as  he  had 
expected  to  be.  That  was  because  through  too  much 
suffering  he  had  temporarily  lost  his  capacity  to  feel 
pain.  It  was  as  if  his  more  delicate  sensibilities  had 
been  treated  with  an  ether  spray  and  frozen.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  he  was  no  longer  in  love  with 
his  wife,  that  Tam  was  not  indispensable  to  him,  and 
that  he  had  made  a  terrific  fool  of  himself  for  nothing. 

Gradually  he  got  the  idea  that  everybody  thought 
that  he  had  made  a  fool  of  himself  and  therefore  de- 
spised him,  and  it  became  natural  to  him  to  avoid 
most  of  his  old  friends  and  to  make  no  new  ones. 

During  all  the  periods  of  despair  and  general 
wretchedness  his  art  curiously  enough  had  made 
great  strides.  An  extraordinary  successful  portrait 
of  Mrs.  Hastings  electrified  the  critics,  who  had 
thought  of  him  as  a  landscape  man,  and  decorator, 
and  the  public  as  well.  It  brought  him  a  deluge  of 
orders  from  rich  women  who  wished  to  be  painted 
by  the  same  man  who  had  painted  the  famous  Mrs. 
Hastings.  Since  his  own  definite  ambition  was  to 
provide  well  for  his  little  daughter's  present  and  fu- 
ture he  accepted  all  the  orders  which  he  thought  he 
could  fill,  and  throughout  the  winter  worked  with 

315 


3i6  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

great  patience,  energy  and  success.  And  he  earned 
twice  the  money  that  he  had  ever  earned  before  in  the 
same  length  of  time.  His  portraits  became  the  rage. 

At  times  he  almost  thought  that  he  was  contented. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  only  numb.  When  the 
numbness  had  worn  off  he  would  find  that  the  crack 
in  his  heart  was  not  healed,  but  wider  and  deeper, 
and  that  his  life  was  emptier  than  a  glass  from  which 
the  rich  wine  had  been  poured. 

He  had  never  done  much  theorizing;  either  about 
art,  literature,  politics  or  the  sexes.  But  he  began 
at  this  time  to  perplex  himself  very  much  about  the 
relationships  of  the  sexes,  and  to  simplify  for  his  own 
enlightenment  the  very  complex  laws  upon  which 
these  relationships  are  based.  From  this  thinking 
always  of  his  own  troubles  with  Diana  and  of  other 
cases  with  which  he  had,  or  was  becoming  familiar, 
he  began  to  generalize.  Soon  Diana  was  no  longer 
in  his  eyes  a  beloved  individual  who  had  done  so  and 
so,  but  the  "kind  of  woman"  who  does  so  and  so. 
Fenn  was  no  longer  an  individual  who  had  broken 
up  his  home,  but  the  "kind  of  man"  who  breaks  up 
other  men's  homes. 

From  his  sitters,  women  for  the  most  part  with 
plenty  of  leisure  for  the  introspection  that  leads  to 
rash  experimentation  he  acquired  much  food  for 
thought. 

Most  of  these  women  married  or  otherwise  wanted 
their  relations  with  him  to  be  different  from  the  usual 
relations  between  customer  and  producer.  One  of 
the  most  prevalent  (and  one  of  the  highest)  ideals 
entertained  by  attractive  young  women  is  the  ideal 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  317 

of  platonic  friendship.  Few  of  them  he  discovered 
had  so  high  an  ideal  of  the  marital  relation.  One 
way  in  which  women  waken  their  passions  is  in  the 
pursuit  of  a  relationship  from  which  the  passions  are 
excluded. 

There  was  a  Mrs.  Tennant  who  talked  so  much  of 
platonic  friendships,  and  insisted  so  hard  that  he  was 
different  from  other  men,  that  she  was  different  from 
other  women,  etc.,  that  Manners  actually  accepted  her 
advances,  and  for  some  time  actually  believed  that  the 
ideal  relationship  she  so  admired  was  possible  of 
achievement.  He  was  of  course  led  into  this  friend- 
ship, not  by  any  aptitude  that  Mrs.  Tennant  had  for 
friendship  but  by  her  extreme  charm  and  prettiness, 
and  her  superficial  friendliness.  He  felt  very  natural 
and  at  ease  whenever  she  was  in  the  studio;  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  paint  her.  She  asked  his  advice  about 
many  things,  and  took  it. 

One  night  about  eleven  o'clock  she  came  to  the 
studio,  and  told  him  that  platonic  friendships  were 
against  reason  and  nature,  that  she  loved  him,  and 
that  like  it  or  not  she  had  left  her  husband  forever. 

There  was  never  in  this  world  a  more  horrified  or 
disillusionized  man  than  Frank  Manners.  And  he 
told  her  so. 

"Oh,  my  dear  child,"  he  said.  "Almost  you  might 
be  my  daughter,  and  you  have  three  children  of  your 
own,  and  by  your  own  account  a  perfectly  satisfactory 
husband  who  loves  and  provides.  It  wasn't  your 
beauty  or  your  charm  or  your  wit  that  has  so  at- 
tracted me  to  you,  my  mind  to  yours — it  was  your 
good  old-fashioned  common  sense." 


3i8  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"But  I  knew  that  the  other  things  wouldn't  attract 
you,"  she  wailed,  "so  I  tried  the  common  sense.  And 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  platonic  friendship.  I  felt 
sorry  for  you,  because  I  knew  you  were  unhappy. 
And  I  thought  it  would  be  good  for  you  to  be  at- 
tracted to  me,  even  very  much.  And  you  wouldn't 
be  and  I  was  to  you  more  and  more,  and  I  hate  my 
husband,  and  if  you  don't  stand  by  me,  I'll  kill  my- 
self. I'll  throw  myself  out  of  that  window." 

Manners  smiled  very  cheerfully,  walked  quickly  to 
the  window  and  opened  it. 

"If  you  really  hate  your  husband,  and  really  want 
to  leave  him  and  your  children,  and  come  to  live  with 
me  instead,"  he  said,  "it's  the  very  best  thing  you 
could  do.  As  for  standing  by  you  in  any  campaign 
to  break  up  a  good  home  which  an  excellent  man  has 
provided  for  you — I'll  do  no  such  thing." 

She  made  two  or  three  desperate  steps  toward  the 
window.  If  she  had  made  two  more  Manners  must 
have  sprung  forward  to  save  her.  But  she  couldn't 
help  taking  a  hurried  look  at  him,  and  she  found  that 
he  had  turned  his  back  and  was  reaching  his  hand  for 
a  box  of  cigarettes. 

She  sat  down  then  in  a  chair  and  cried  very  bitterly. 

"I  hate  you,"  she  said. 

"You  hate  the  discovery  that  what  you  thought  to 
be  one  of  the  great  eternal  passions  of  history  is 
nothing  of  the  sort." 

"Men  are  brutes." 

"For  millions  of  years  men  have  made  the  mistake 
of  sympathizing  with  women  when  they  are  in  the 
wrong.  You  love  your  children.  Nothing  that  they 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  319 

can  ever  say  or  do  can  alter  that.  It's  the  one  thing 
you  can  be  sure  of.  Once  you  thought  you  were 
going  to  love  your  husband  forever.  A  moment  ago 
you  thought  you  were  going  to  love  me  forever. 
Already  you  hate  me  ..." 

She  rose  and  moved  toward  the  door. 

"Most  men,"  she  said,  "would  have  at  least  had 
the  courtesy — " 

But  he  interrupted  her. 

"Many  men,"  he  said,  "would  have  done  for 
beauty  and  charm  the  compliment  of  letting  you  ruin 
yourself.  I  believe  that  timidity,  embarrassment, 
and  lack  of  savoir-faire  are  largely  responsible  for 
the  evil  reputation  that  gets  attached  to  some  men. 
I  believe  the  story  of  the  apple  and  Eve  and  the  ser- 
pent, and  of  Poor  Adam,  who  got  so  sheepish  and 
embarrassed  that  he  didn't  really  know  what  end  he 
was  standing  on  ...  Please  don't  go  away  angry 
...  I  think  women  were  put  into  the  world  to 
tempt  men. 

"I  think  they  were  probably  meant  to  tempt  more 
than  one  man,  whichever  man  happened  to  turn  up 
at  the  right  moment  ...  I  think  civilization  has 
found  it  more  practical  and  efficacious  to  insist  on 
monogamy.  I  think  the  old  world-peopling  instinct 
survives  in  most  women.  In  some  so  strongly  that 
they  have  nothing  with  which  to  combat  it.  You  told 
me  once  that  you  and  your  husband  had  agreed  that 
you  could  not  afford  to  have  more  than  four  chil- 
dren, and  leave  a  pleasant  little  fortune  of  thirty  or 
forty  thousand  a  year  to  each.  You  and  he  agreed. 
But  nature  didn't.  That's  why  nature — not  you — 


320  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

came  here  tonight.  I  don't  blame  you  a  bit.  I'm 
sorry  and  unhappy.  When  you  started  to  throw 
yourself  out  of  the  window,  nature  said,  'Hold  on. 
He's  not  the  only  man  in  the  world.' ' 

"Then  according  to  you,"  she  broke  in,  "I  should 
go  and  fling  myself  at  the  feet  of  some  other  gentle- 
man who  knows  a  g-g-good  thing  when  he  sees  it,  and 
tempt  him." 

"That's  the  nature  of  it,"  admitted  Manners.  "But 
because  of  our  laws  and  institutions  and  religion,  if 
you  like,  neither  Tom,  nor  Dick,  nor  Harry  will  do. 
There's  only  one  man  for  you  to  tempt  and  that  man 
is  your  husband.  .  .  .  Your  children  will  have 
forty  thousand  a  year  apiece.  Don't  you  think  that 
any  one  of  them  would  rather  be  left  with  a  beggarly 
twenty  thousand  than — never  to  have  been  born  at 
all?" 

"I  think  you  are  a  disgusting  cad!"  she  exclaimed. 
"I  don't  wonder  your  wife  divorced  you." 

Manners  flinched.  He  had  already  learned  that 
Diana  was  going  to  have  a  child,  and  the  numbness 
which  had  held  his  sensibilities  in  subjection  was  be- 
ginning to  wear  off.  He  bowed  his  head  a  little  and 
said  nothing. 

"Tell  me,"  she  said,  really  quite  a  horrid  sneering 
look  on  her  pretty  face,  "that  some  day  I'll  be  glad 
that  you  insulted  me  and  sent  me  home  like  a  naughty 
whipped  child." 

"Some  day,"  he  said  very  gently,  "I  hope  you  will 
be  glad  that  a  very  unhappy  man  was  still  in  love 
with  his  wife,  who  had  left  him,  and  that  you  had  had 
no  hand  in  making  some  other  man  who  loves  you 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  321 

legitimately  and  in  perhaps  the  same  way,  as  unhappy 
as  that." 

From  that  moment  his  mind  ran  more  and  more 
on  the  fact  that  Diana  was  going  to  have  a  child  and 
the  longing  for  his  own  child  grew  upon  him. 

In  May  he  wrote  to  Diana  asking  her  to  let  him 
have  Tarn  at  least  for  the  summer  months.  Diana  re- 
fused, almost  curtly.  She  did  not  go  into  her  reasons 
for  refusing. 

She  had  the  impulse  to  tell  him  the  truth.  "I  won't 
let  you  have  her,"  she  might  have  written,  "because 
the  happiness  that  I  looked  forward  to  is  ashes.  I 
don't  love  my  husband.  I  am  bowed  to  the  ground 
with  shame  and  humiliation.  But  I  am  not  going  to 
play  this  husband  false.  There  is  good  in  me,  and  I 
shall  try  to  redeem  my  sins  against  you,  by  doing 
right  by  him.  I  have  only  Tarn  to  keep  me  going. 
Without  her  I  should  falter  and  fail.  Somehow  I 
have  got  to  keep  my  head  up.  God  means  me  to.  I 
am  going  to  have  a  baby.  If  my  husband  wants  others 
I  shall  give  them  to  him  if  I  can.  God  cares  more 
about  the  children  than  about  the  complex  motives 
that  bring  them  into  the  world  and  keep  them  out  .  . " 

But  Manners  could  know  nothing  of  this. 

"She  is  going  to  give  him  the  children  that  she 
denied  me,"  he  thought.  "And  she  has  taken  away 
from  me  the  one  child  that  she  gave." 

Once  more  those  intolerable  wounds  made  in  his 
nature  by  injustice  opened  wide  and  the  bile  and  gall 
gushed  out  of  them.  He  wrote  Diana  one  terrible 
letter.  Then  he  left  the  city,  and  went  for  some 
weeks  into  the  Canadian  forests  with  a  half-breed 


322  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

to  guide  him.  He  fished  very  little,  ate  very  little, 
smoked  a  great  deal,  and  asked  a  great  many  questions 
which  the  half-breed  answered  according  to  his  ex- 
perience of  life  in  the  back  woods,  and  their  settle- 
ments. 

"If  your  wife,  Wambolt,"  he  asked,  "fell  in  love 
with  another  man  and  wanted  to  leave  you,  what  would 
you  do?" 

"Kill  that  man  for  sure,  and  beat  her  up  good." 

"If  you  wanted  more  children  and  she  wouldn't 
have  any  more?" 

"I  give  her  good  beating,  then." 

"But  suppose  you  fell  in  love  with  another  woman 
and  wanted  to  leave  your  wife?  That  would  make  a 
difference,  wouldn't  it?" 

"She  beat  me  up  then,"  said  the  half-breed.  "May- 
be she  scratch  her  own  face,  and  shoot  me  down." 

In  any  case  you  wouldn't  mess  and  fuss  and  wrangle 
and  dispute  and  get  bad  and  good  advice  from  the 
neighbors." 

"Got  no  time,"  said  Wambolt.  "Too  much  trouble 
to  buy  food  and  shoes  and  keep  warm." 

Manners  spent  a  week  in  Quebec. 

He  had  begun  now  to  think  very  seriously  of 
spiriting  Tam  away  to  Canada.  He  felt  that  he  could 
not  do  without  her  and  ought  not.  "Diana,"  he 
thought,  "has  everything  she  wants.  I  have  nothing. 
It  isn't  fair." 

He  inspected  several  houses  that  were  for  rent,  and 
visited  some  elementary  schools. 

"Diana  could  come  to  see  Tam  when  she  liked,"  he 
thought.  "But  soon  she  will  be  so  busy  with  her  new 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  323 

family  that  she  won't  be  able  to  come  very  often.  Tarn 
and  I  wouldn't  have  to  stick  in  Canada.  There's  all 
Europe,  and  the  wonderful  Rivieras." 

And  he  determined  finally  that  he  must  have  Tarn 
and  that  if  necessary  he  would  steal  her. 

Diana  had  no  more  been  fair  about  Tam  than  about 
anything  else.  He  could  never  love  any  woman  but 
Diana.  That  was  proved.  Nevertheless  the  love  that 
he  had  for  her  drew  back  as  it  were  and  hid  all  its 
brightness  in  some  dark  cavern  of  his  heart. 

How  badly  Diana  might  feel  at  losing  Tam  was  no 
longer  any  concern  of  his.  She  had  made  her  bed. 
Let  her  lie  in  it.  Losing  Tam  would  merely  be  one  of 
the  rough  spots.  Let  Fenn  comfort  her. 

He  could  be  happy  if  he  had  Tam.  He  could  do 
fine  work  and  leave  her  well-off.  Without  her  he  felt 
that  he  had  shot  his  bolt,  and  could  not  bend  his  cross- 
bow again.  He  had  suffered  too  much,  and  his  crea- 
tive impulse  needed  someone  to  love  all  the  time  and 
someone  to  love  him  back. 

"I  will  give  Tam  little  responsibilities,"  he  said. 
"And  make  her  feel  from  the  first  that  she  is  of  definite 
practical  use  and  importance  to  me.  That  will  help 
to  make  her  happy." 

But  Mary  Hastings  had  heard  with  mingled  sorrow 
and  alarm  of  Frank  Manners's  determination  to  steal 
his  little  daughter,  and  take  her  out  of  the  country. 

"You  haven't  treated  me  fairly,  Frank,"  she  said. 
"You  tell  me  that  you  have  an  important  secret  to  con- 
fide in  me,  you  make  me  promise  that  it  shall  go  no 
further,  and  then  you  announce  that  you  are  going  to 
commit  a  crime." 


324  THE   WILD    GOOSE 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I've  been  unfair;  but  this  is  life  or 
death  to  me,  Mary,  and  so  I  can't  release  you  from 
your  promise." 

"And  before  I  knew  that  there  was  anything  in  the 
wind,"  she  said,  "you  made  me  tell  you  all  about  my 
visit  with  the  Fenn's  at  Combers,  and  which  was  Tarn's 
room,  and  about  the  ladder  leaning  against  the  wood- 
shed .  .  .  You  have  made  me  a  party  to  the  crime. 
I  think  I  must  tell  you  some  more  about  that  visit. 
Nothing  that  will  help  you.  Things  that  might  hin- 
der you.  Do  you  want  to  make  Diana  wretchedly  un- 
happy? Somehow  I  think  that  she  would  be  if  she 
lost  Tam.  Somehow  I  think  that  Diana  feels  that  she 
has  lost  everything  that  made  life  worth  loving  except 
Tam  ..." 

"She  said  things  to  you  like  that?  .  .  .  Diana 
did?" 

"She  is  too  proud  to  confess  that  she  has  made  a 
mistake.  She  will  never  confess  it.  She  will  never 
repeat  it — or  any  of  her  old  mistakes.  She  is  greatly 
changed.  All  these  things  are  in  her  face." 

"Tired  of  him?" 

"Not  that.  She  never  loved  him,  and  now  she 
knows  it.  She  never  loved  anyone  but  you.  She 
knows  that  now.  She  wishes  that  when  that  feeling 
for  you  died  that  she  had  been  willing  to  make  the 
most  of  her  memories.  She  is  trying  very  hard  to  be 
upright,  considerate,  unselfish  and  fine  about  every- 
thing." 

She  waited  for  her  words  to  sink  in  and  then  went 
on. 

"She   feels  that   she  has   failed  Tam  terribly  and 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  325 

that  she  must  never  fail  her  again.  Oh  Frank,  if  you 
had  wanted  to  punish  her,  you  could  not  have  so 
punished  her  as  she  has  punished  herself.  If  you  take 
Tam  away  I  think  you  will  kill  a  soul  which  having 
passed  through  great  wickedness  and  besmirchment 
is  on  its  way  to  redemption." 

But  Manners  did  not  melt  into  sympathetic  ad- 
miration at  this  guess-work  estimate  of  the  new  forces 
at  work  in  the  woman  who  had  spoiled  his  life. 

"What  is  the  man  like?"  he  asked. 

"I  think  that  he  guesses  what  I  guess,  and  that  no 
man  ever  admired  a  woman  more  than  he  admires 
Diana.  I  think  that  he  is  a  little  trying  about  his 
money  affairs,  which  do  not  march  forward.  And 
I  think  that  deep  down  he  has  the  horrible  fear  that 
some  day  Diana  will  get  tired  of  being  good  and  will 
serve  him  as  she  served  you." 

"Mary,"  he  said.  "Perhaps  this  will  surprise  you. 
I  would  not  take  Diana  back  if  I  could  get  her  and  she 
wanted  to  come.  There  is  no  getting  over  the  injustice 
she  did  me.  There  is  no  cure  for  it.  There  is  no  for- 
giveness for  anyone  who  committed  the  crime  of  sep- 
arating Tam  from  me.  Besides  that  I  do  not  believe  in 
divorce.  It  is  not  in  my  prayer  book.  I  believe  that 
my  wife  is  living  in  sin,  that  her  child  in  the  sight  of 
God  will  be  illegitimate.  I  do  not  choose  to  have  my 
own  child  brought  up  in  such  an  atmosphere." 

"If  you  fell  in  love  again,  Frank,  wouldn't  you 
marry  again?" 

"I?" 

She  had  no  need  to  probe  the  question  any  deeper. 


326  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

"If  Diana  died,  I  might,"  he  said.  "But  she  is  my 
wife  and  only  death  can  end  our  marriage." 

"Then  why  do  you  say  that  you  would  not  take 
her  back?" 

"I  am  wrong  to  say  that.  I  would.  I'd  have  to. 
I  meant  that  in  my  eyes  she  is  utterly  contaminated 
and  soiled." 

"But  please — about  Tarn — you  must  change  your 
mind.  No  man — not  even  you — is  quite  fit  to  bring  up 
a  little  girl." 

"As  soon  as  there  is  another  child  in  the  house 
Tarn  will  not  receive  impartial  treatment  from  the 
man.  It  is  better  that  Diana  should  die  of  grief  than 
that  Tarn  should  grow  up  in  an  atmosphere  of 
injustice." 

"Oh,  but  Fenn  is  such  a  kind,  really  nice  person. 
He  wouldn't  be  unjust." 

"Is  he  human?" 

"Yes." 

"Will  he  love  his  child  more  than  he  loves  mine?" 

"Of  course,  but " 

"Then  in  an  excess  of  justice  he  will  very  likely 
favor  my  child  at  the  expense  of  his  own.  That 
would  be  as  bad  for  Tarn  as  the  other  thing.  My  mind 
is  all  made  up,  Mary.  And  all  the  details  are  worked 
out.  The  elopement  is  for  Saturday.  I  want  Fenn  to 
be  on  hand  when  Diana  finds  out  that  Tam  is  gone. 
She  might  do  something  foolish.  .  .  .  Tarn's  got 
good  nerves.  There  won't  be  any  disturbance.  She 
sleeps  with  her  window  open  of  course.  There  won't 
be  any  noise." 

At  length  Mary  Hastings  gave  up  trying  to  shake 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  327 

him  from  his  purpose.  She  wanted  him  to  have  what- 
ever it  was  that  he  wanted.  The  tragedy  of  his  heart- 
break was  all  in  his  face  now.  She  had  never  felt  so 
sorry  for  any  one.  He  only  thought  that  he  would  be 
happy  with  Tarn.  So  a  man  dying  of  thirst  believes 
that  water  will  make  him  happy.  It  will  not.  It  will 
perhaps  give  him  some  ecstatic  moments,  but  in  the 
ultimate  it  will  only  renew  his  short  lease  of  opportu- 
nity in  which  to  continue  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

"He'll  run  off  with  Tarn,"  thought  Mrs.  Hastings. 
"And  no  sooner  safe  in  Canada  than  the  injustice 
which  he  has  done  to  Diana  will  begin  to  prey  on  his 
mind.  In  a  little  while  he  will  return  the  child  to  her 
mother." 

"Frank,"  she  said  aloud.  "Diana  has  made  no  mis- 
take which  you  have  not  advised  her  against  long  be- 
fore she  made  it.  A  dozen  times  she  has  hurt  herself 
badly  and  you  have  been  in  a  position  to  say  'I  told  you 
so.'  Any  person  of  average  common  sense  could  have 
foretold  that  her  reckless  indulgence  in  excitements  of 
all  kind  would  get  her  into  trouble.  She  would  not 
listen  to  you.  She  seems  almost  to  have  touched  the 
limits  of  perverse,  blind  unreasonableness  and  folly." 

"She  does,"  said  Manners  a  little  grimly. 

"But  you,  Frank,  you  who  were  so  wise  for  her, 
are  you  equally  wise  for  yourself?  Oh,  I  am  not  try- 
ing to  make  you  leave  matters  as  they  are.  By  all 
means  steal  Tam  if  you  must.  But  I  tell  you,  that 
you  are  doing  as  headstrong,  as  unreasonable,  as 
blind,  perverse,  and  foolish  a  thing  as  ever  Diana  did. 
And  here  am  I,  your  good  friend 

"My  best!" 


328  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

" Seeing  clearly  into  the  obvious  future,  know- 
ing what  is  best  for  you,  and  powerless  to  hold  you 
back  from  folly  or  to  influence  you  in  any  way." 

"What  would  be  best  for  me,  Mary?  How  can  I 
find  any  peace,  or  comfort  or  contentment  in  this 
world?" 

"You  cannot  give  Tarn  all  that  she  needs.  You  can 
give  Diana  nothing  that  she  needs.  Find  somebody 
who  needs  all  that  you  have  to  give,  and  give  it  to  her. 
You  think  that  you  were  only  meant  to  love  once. 
Because  you  have  ceased  to  be  any  of  the  things  she 
needs  to  the  woman  you  love,  you  refuse  to  be  those 
things  to  any  woman.  .  .  .  That  lovely  Mary 
Marsh  you  painted  last  winter,  Frank  .  .  .  Oh,  she 
holds  her  pretty  head  very  high,  and  she  would  die 
before  she  confessed  anything,  and  she  would  make 
you  a  good  wife.  She  is  the  kind  of  woman  you  ad- 
mire most.  I  know  it.  She  is  the  kind  of  woman  you 
thought  Diana  was.  She  is  the  kind  of  woman  that 
Diana  is  now,  now  that  she  has  made  her  final  irre- 
trievable mistake  and  has  determined  to  make  the  best 
of  it.  ...  Marry  her,  Frank.  The  moment  you 
find,  which  will  be  the  moment  you  ask  her,  that  you 
are  giving  her  everything  that  she  needs,  asks  or  de- 
sires, all  your  poor  rumpled  spirit  will  smooth  out, 
and  you  will  love  her." 

"But  I  am  married,"  said  Manners. 

"Nobody  thinks  that  but  you.  And  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  with  you  it  is  a  pose.  Look  me  in  the  eyes 
and  tell  me  that  it's  not  a  pose " 

He  met  her  eyes,  and  smiled  a  little  wistfully. 

"It  isn't  a  pose,  Mary." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  329 

It  is  a  fact  though  that  when  a  little  later  he  quitted 
the  Hastings  House,  he  stood  hesitating  and  looking 
up  the  avenue.  That  way  lay  the  house  in  which  the 
lovely  Miss  Marsh  lived  with  her  father  the  gay  old 
admiral.  She  was  hesitatingly  pretty.  The  sittings 
that  she  had  given  him  had  meant  a  period  that  bor- 
dered on  contentment.  He  had  grown  truly  fond  of 
her.  It  made  him  perfectly  sick  to  think  that  she 
loved  him.  He  hesitated  I  say  and  looked  up  the 
avenue.  That  way  also,  in  a  general  direction  lay 
Combers  and  the  little  house  in  which  Tarn  and  his 
wife  lived  with  Ogden  Fenn. 

Presently  he  turned  down  the  avenue  and  walked 
with  quick  long  steps  to  the  hotel  at  which  he  was 
stopping.  A  deep  gloom  had  settled  upon  him,  and  a 
feeling  of  desperate  uneasiness  and  presentment.  He 
did  not  sleep  at  all  that  night.  He  made  many  at- 
tempts. Between  times  he  read  at  a  thick  volume  that 
he  had  found  on  the  bureau. 

A  phrase  that  he  came  across  stuck  in  his  brain.  He 
found  himself  repeating  it  many  times  the  next  day, 
with  a  kind  of  desperate  hopefulness. 

"This  life  is  nothing."    "This  life  is  nothing." 


CHAPTER    XXV 

FRANK  MANNERS  could, not  ask  any  one  to  help  him. 
To  steal  Tarn  was  to  break  the  law  of  the  land.  For 
himself  the  penalty  mattered  little.  The  day,  Satur- 
day, was  very  young  when  he  started  for  Combers. 
He  wished  to  spy  out  the  land  a  little  by  daylight.  He 
had  bought  a  car  of  good  make,  and  filled  two  valises 
with  such  things  as  he  thought  would  be  essential  to 
his  little  daughter  during  their  journey  together.  He 
had  guessed  at  the  sizes.  Poor  fellow,  he  had  not 
seen  her  for  a  long  time,  and  she  had  begun  to  shoot 
upward.  From  her  letter  he  knew  that  one  thing 
about  her  had  not  changed,  and  that  was  her  love  for 
him.  She  had  signed  her  last  misspelled  sprawl  "Your 
loving  friend  and  daughter." 

He  passed  a  florist  when  a  thought  struck  him.  He 
stopped  the  car,  and  walking  back  to  the  shop,  entered, 
and  after  a  little  talk  with  the  clerk  caused  to  be  made 
up  an  old-fashioned  bouquet.  He  had  it  sent  to  Miss 
Marsh,  and  with  it  the  following  note. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  MARSH: 

I  am  passing  through  this  city,  and  because  I  wanted 
very  much  to  come  to  see  you,  and  couldn't,  I  am 
sending  you  some  flowers  to  prove  that  I  had  the 
thought.  If  I  have  ever  done  anything  good  it  is  the 
portrait  that  I  painted  of  you.  That  is  because  you 

330 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  331 

are  good.  And  that  is  why  I  have  sent  you  old-fash- 
ioned flowers.  Goodness  in  women  is  getting  to  be  a 
little  old-fashioned.  There's  Heliotrope  in  this  b:m- 
quet,  for  its  sweetness,  and  honesty,  for  every  reason, 
and  Heartsease,  for  that  is  what  I  wish  for  you,  and 
there's  Rosemary  which  as  all  men  know  is  for  Re- 
membrance. 

I  am  starting  on  a  long  journey.  Since  I  may  not 
see  you,  how  happy  I  am  to  have  been  born  with  a 
splendid  memory  for  faces,  and  for  the  things  that  are 
splendid  in  character. 

Faithfully  your  friend, 

FRANK  MANNERS. 

"Miss  Marsh,"  mused  the  clerk,  when  the  haggard 
customer  had  gone  his  way.  "She  won't  stay  Miss 
Marsh  long,  if  that  gentleman  has  anything  to  say 
about  it.  Eh,  Miss  Chiro?  He  sent  her  Rosemary 
and  Heartsease,  which  is  the  Latin  for  pansies  and 
while  he  was  writing  the  note  to  go  with  them  the  sw — 
perspiration  ran  off  him." 

"It's  a  warm  morning,"  sniffed  Miss  Chiro,  and  she 
finished  entering  the  transaction  in  the  ledger. 

The  clerk  was  wrong.  Mary  Marsh  never  changed 
her  name.  The  author  holds  no  brief  for  his  sex.  As 
often  as  not  it's  the  woman  who's  the  wild  goose. 
Most  often  it  is  neither.  And  when  you  deal  in 
Faithfulness  it  is  safest  to  mark  the  package  "fragile 
and  perishable." 

Frank  Manners  felt  better  somehow  for  having  sent 
the  flowers  and  written  the  note.  The  gloom  left  him, 
and  during  the  long  drive  his  senses  were  often  pleas- 


332  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

antly  filled  and  even  thrilled  with  the  beauty  of  the 
landscape  and  the  color  and  odor  of  flowers. 

He  reviewed  many  passages  in  his  life  with  a  lively 
if  wistful  pleasure. 

"After  all,"  he  thought,  "I  have  loved  and  I  have 
been  loved.  Surely  all  this  wretchedness  of  heart 
must  soon  pass  away.  I  have  blamed  other  people  for 
their  failures  far  more  than  I  have  ever  blamed  my- 
self for  mine.  With  Tarn  I  shall  find  peace  and 
contentment." 

As  he  drew  near  Combers  he  became  exhilarated  and 
excited.  He  had  not  before  entering  realized  how 
his  soul  panted  for  the  sight  and  the  sounds  of  his 
little  daughter.  Oh,  to  have  her  on  the  seat  beside  him, 
pressed  hard  against  him,  the  car  tearing  forward,  and 
all  about  them  the  night! 

Having  looked  over  the  lay  of  the  land  and  dis- 
covered a  little  wood  road,  near  Fenn's  house,  in 
which  he  might  leave  the  car,  Manners  drove  farther 
into  the  mountains  and  returned  to  Combers  after 
dark.  He  backed  the  car  into  the  mouth  of  the  wood 
road  and  doused  the  lights. 

Then  occasionally  flashing  a  torch  he  followed  a 
path  which  he  had  explored  earlier  in  the  day  and 
which  led  to  the  edge  of  the  little  clearing  in  which 
Fenn's  house  stood.  At  that  point  he  sat  down  to 
wait  until  one  hour  and  a  half  after  all  the  lights  in 
Fenn's  house  had  been  extinguished.  But,  since  he 
nad  eaten  nothing  from  early  morning,  hunger  (he 
did  not  know  that  it  was  hunger)  disturbed  him  and 
made  him  restless. 

Gradually  the  forest  became  alive  with  the  noises 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  333 

of  the  little  things  that  walk  stealthily  at  night.  A 
little  screech  owl  obtruded,  but  flew  away  after  a 
little.  The  air  had  turned  very  brisk  and  exhilarating. 

About  eight  o'clock  a  light  shone  in  the  window  of 
Tarn's  room.  Now  and  then  a  shadow,  as  of  some- 
thing vast  and  spectral  came  between  the  light  and  the 
window.  Manners  shook  and  trembled  jerkily  like 
a  man  with  a  chill.  He  strained  every  faculty  to  try 
and  catch  a  sound  of  her  voice.  But  could  not. 

"How  often,"  he  thought,  "when  she  was  a  baby 
I  have  taken  her  in  my  arms  and  walked  about  the 
garden  paths  at  dusk.  She  could  see  things  in  the 
bushes  and  behind  them  that  I  could  not  see.  Pygmies, 
gnomes,  Rewards,  and  Fairies  most  like.  How  she 
would  gurgle  at  them !  How  her  great  eyes  would 
shine !" 

The  light  in  her  window  went  out. 

"What  does  God  think  of  all  this?"  he  wondered. 
"Here  sit  I  alone  in  the  cold.  Yonder  in  the  warm 
house  my  wife  sits  with  another  man.  Her  body  has 
no  secrets  from  him.  For  whole  days  I  have  passed 
up  and  down  before  the  vigilant  tribunal  of  my  own 
conscience,  turning  as  I  passed  that  nothing  of  me 
might  be  hid.  I  have  done  wrong.  I  have  been  a  fool. 
But  I  have  done  right,  and  I  have  been  wise.  I  have 
done  nothing  ^vhich  in  any  way  justifies  the  torture  to 
which  I  have  been  subjected " 

His  meditation  melted  into  argument  and  interroga- 
tion half-earnest,  half-whimsical. 

"Almighty  God,"  he  thought.  "If  you  are  almighty, 
why  are  you  also  called  all-merciful?  Is  it  all-mer- 
ciful to  treat  a  poor  little  shrimp  like  me  quite  so 


334  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

rough?  I  don't  say  that  it  isn't.  I  ask  for  informa- 
tion. This  world  is  full  of  sick.  The  sickest  of  all 
these  are  those  who  are  sick  at  heart.  Was  it  all- 
merciful  when  you  decreed  that  disease  should  be 
contagious  instead  of  health,  and  that  wretchedness 
and  unhappiness  should  be  the  common  lot,  and  dirt 
and  poverty  and  envy  and  lust?  You  are  called  also 
the  All-Wise.  Are  you  then  still  in  an  experimental 
mood,  oh,  God?" 

His  thoughts  were  without  irreverence.  Puzzle- 
ment over  all  such  things  had  been  habitual  with  him 
since  boyhood.  In  the  telling  American  phrase:  he 
came  from  "Missouri,"  and  wanted  to  be  "shown." 

"Now  upon  my  soul  and  honor,"  he  thought,  "I 
do  not  know  if  what  I  intend  to  do  this  night  is  right 
or  wrong.  Give  me  a  sign." 

The  author  is  not  so  presumptuous  as  to  say  that  a 
sign  was  not  immediately  given.  He  is  not  so  pre- 
sumptuous as  to  say  that  one  was.  He  records  only 
that  in  the  very  next  crumb  of  time,  a  star,  dizzy  per- 
haps with  its  own  problems,  lost  its  balance,  and  fell 
from  the  heavens.  For  a  moment  a  long  train  of 
fiery  sparks  marked  the  splendor  of  the  path  along 
which  it  had  whirled  to  extinction. 

I  do  not  know  if  Manners's  resolution  was  actually 
shaken  or  not.  I  think  that  the  coincidence  must  have 
disturbed  him  a  little,  for  he  said  to  himself,  as  if  to 
justify  himself. 

"That  sort  of  sign  was  all  right  in  the  first  century, 
but  it  is  too  old-fashioned  for  the  twentieth.  Give  me 
a  sign  that  I  can  understand — something  simple  and 
direct  like — like  striking  me  dead." 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  335 

Somehow  he  wished  he  hadn't  said  that,  even  to 
himself.  It  had  a  flippant  if  not  blasphemous  effect 
upon  his  sense  of  fitness. 

"It  would  have  been  in  better  taste,"  he  thought, 
"to  have  asked  Him  to  endow  some  little  woodland 
creature  with  the  power  of  human  speech,  to  have  sent 
it  to  perch  upon  my  shoulder  and  to  whisper  the  answer 
in  my  ear." 

There  stole  suddenly  and  quietly  and  sweetly  out  of 
the  house,  as  familiar  to  him  as  any  of  his  most  happy 
and  impassioned  and  heart-breaking  memories,  the 
prelude  to  a  little  song.  Diana's  voice  followed.  And 
a  wild  thrill  went  through  his  blood. 

He  had  no  need  to  hear  the  articulate  words.  They 
were  burned  in  his  heart: 


"What  shall  I  say  of  her? 

All  that  I  may  of  her 

All  that  is  sad  in  her 

Sweet  in  her,  glad  in  her 

Comes  to  my  heart  as  her  name  to  the  lips  of  me 
Wakens  and  pulses  and  thrills  every  thought  of  me 

Choose  what  I  could  of  her, 

Think  what  I  would  of  her 

All  that  is  worst  of  her 

All  that  is  good  of  her 

Sways  me  and  draws  me 

To  love  every   mood   of   her — 

Changefully  changeful, 

My  Lady  of  Moods." 


Then  there  came  out  to  him  the  chorus,  wonder- 
fully strengthened  and  impassioned  by  the  addition 
of  a  man's  voice,  an  astounding  voice,  a  glorious  voice. 

Why  it  should  have  surprised  Manners  to  learn  that 
Ogden  Fenn  had  a  beautiful  voice  is  unknown.  Yet 


336  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

it  is  doubtful  if  anything  in  this  world  could  have 
surprised  him  much  more. 

"  'Heart  of  my  Heart ! 

She  has  broken  the  heart  of  me, 

Soul  of  my  soul ! 

Who  will  never  be  part  of  me, 
She  whom  I  love,  but  will  never  be  love  of  me 
Song  of  my  sorrows — My  Lady  of  Moods.' " 

The  singing  ended,  and  there  was  a  time  of  silence. 
But  the  night  creatures  of  the  wood  had  been  awed 
into  a  silence  that  lasted  until  the  beginning  of  the  next 
song. 

"That's  not  the  way  a  happy  man  sings,"  thought 
Manners.  "He,  too,  has  sensed  the  sweet  liquor  in  the 
cup  turned  bitter  at  the  touch  of  his  lips.  His  heart  is 
hurt,  but  he  worships  her.  Oh,  what  do  I  care  what 
she  gives  him  if  she  doesn't  want  to  give!  Let  him 
'paddle  in  her  neck'  as  the  wicked  king  paddled  in 
the  neck  of  Hamlet's  mother."  And  his  thoughts 
floated  back  to  college  and  to  a  jingle,  old  even  then, 
but  sometimes  sung: 

"Oh  a  hero's  song  I  sing 
His  story  shall  my  pen  mark 
And  he  was  not  a  king 
But  Hamlet,  prince  of  Denmark 
With  a  woken  noken  nure 
And  a  woken  noken  noko, 
With  a  woken  noken  nure 
Higho !    Highoddy.' " 

It  is  said  that  in  the  moment  of  a  man's  death 
before  the  last  glimmering  of  his  consciousness  there 
rushes  in  review  the  whole  of  his  past  life.  There 
was  nothing  moribund  about  Frank  Manners.  He 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  337 

had  never  been  more  tensely  alive  than  during  the 
whole  of  that  day.  Yet  it  is  true  that  during  the  long 
drive  and  during  the  long  vigil  below  his  little 
daughter's  window,  he  had  had  a  bewildering  number 
of  glimpses  at  the  whole  of  the  life  that  he  had  lived. 

There  was  no  prelude  this  time.  Very  simple  and 
direct,  and  very  wistful  too  and  unhappy  and  question- 
ing and  appealing  came  Diana's  voice,  sustained  by  a 
questioning  and  accompaniment. 

"  'I  know  not  when  the  day  shall  be, 
I  know  not  when  our  eyes  may  meet, 
What  welcome  you  may  give  to  me 
Or  will  your  words  be  sad  or  sweet. 
It  may  not  be  till  years  have  passed 
Till  eyes  are  dim  and  tresses  gray, — 
The  world  is  wide,  but,  love,  at  last, 
Our  hands,  our  hearts,  must  meet  some  day. 

I  know  not  are  you  far  or  near. 
Or  are  you  dead,  or  that  you  live, 
I  know  not  who  the  blame  should  bear, 
Or  who  should  plead  or  who  forgive ; 
But  when  we  meet  some  day,  some  day, 
Eyes  clearer  grown  the  truth  may  see, 
And  every  cloud  shall  roll  away, 
That  darkens  love,  twixt  you  and  me.' " 

One  by  one  the  lights  in  Ogden  Fenn's  house  went 
out,  until  there  was  no  light  left.  Frank  Manners  sat 
on  in  the  darkness.  And  for  a  long  time  he  cried  like 
a  little  child.  .  .  . 

When  a  flash  of  his  torch  upon  the  face  of  his 
\vatch  showed  that  after  the  extinction  of  the  last 
light  a  full  hour  and  a  half  had  passed,  he  rose  to  his 
feet,  and  for  a  few  moments  stood  and  looked  upward 
at  the  amazing  scarf  of  stars  that  is  flung  across  the 
Nubian  shoulders  of  the  night. 


338  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

He  spoke  aloud  in  his  quiet,  well-bred  voice : 

"Am  I  about  to  do  right  or  wrong?" 

As  is  customary  when  men  turn  their  faces  upward 
and  ask  questions,  there  was  no  answer. 

"Very  well,"  then  said  he.     "Here  goes!" 

Tam  waked.  She  could  see  that  a  head  and 
shoulders  were  framed  in  her  window.  They  were 
black  and  flat  as  if  cut  out  of  cardboard.  There  was 
just  enough  starlight  to  outline  them. 

She  came  of  gallant  stock.  And  she  was  the  proud 
possessor  of  an  electric  torch.  She  pointed  this  at  the 
black  cardboard  head,  and  touched  the  button.  In  the 
scientific  miracle  of  the  flash  the  flat  cardboard 
changed  into  reliefs,  and  modelings  and  chiselings. 
It  changed  into  the  face  that  she  loved  best  in  all  the 
world. 

There  was  a  wonderful  story  smiling  in  her  father's 
eyes  and  about  his  mouth.  The  smiling  seemed  to 
say  to  her  "silence— courage." 

For  the  protection  of  his  isolated  house  Ogden  Fenn 
kept  in  one  corner  of  his  room  a  double  barreled 
twelve-gauge  shotgun  loaded  with  number  eight  shot. 

In  raising  the  ladder  to  the  window,  it  had  made  one 
sharp  rasping  sound  against  the  shingled  side  of  th2 
house.  This  sound  had  waked  Fenn  and  brought  him, 
gun  and  all,  on  barefoot  tiptoe  into  Tarn's  room.  He 
had  looked  out  of  the  window  and  down.  He  had 
discovered  the  ladder  and  the  bulk  of  a  man  in  the 
act  of  ascending  it.  Then  he  had  backed  away  and 
crouched  low,  and  there  he  was  all  this  time,  his  gun 
levelled.  He  had  no  intention  of  shooting.  It  was  in 
his  mind  to  get  the  drop  on  the  housebreaker,  arrest 


THE    WILD    GOOSE  339 

him  and  turn  him  over  to  justice.  He  was  not  in  the 
least  frightened,  but  he  was  nervous  and  trembling, 
which  was  only  natural. 

The  flash  of  light  which  had  revealed  the  father  to 
the  daughter,  revealed  to  Ogden  Fenn  the  man  he  had 
-  «  wronged  and  outraged.  And  he  did  that  thing 
which  of  all  things  in  this  world  he  would  have  wished 
the  least  to  have  done.  He  pulled  both  triggers  of  his 
gun. 

The  effect  of  no  weapon  is  more  frightful  than  that 
of  a  shotgun  at  three  or  four  feet.  Of  Frank  Man- 
ners's  face  when  they  came  to  him  lying  on  his  back  at 
the  foot  of  the  ladder  there  was  nothing  left  that  was 
recognizable.  But  Diana  recognized  him  instantly. 

There  they  stood,  those  two,  in  their  nightgowns 
and  bare  feet,  looking  at  the  dead  man  where  he  lay — 
between  them. 

Had  you  stood  behind  Fenn  so  that  he  was  between 
you  and  the  lantern  which  he  had  stood  on  the  ground, 
you  might  have  noticed  how  badly  knocked  the  man's 
knees  were,  and  how  they  kept  on  knocking.  It  needed 
no  effect  of  any  transparency  to  show  that  the  woman 
with  the  beautiful  dishevelled  hair  was  far  gone  with 
child. 

Indeed  it  was  to  be  born  to  her  as  the  crowning 
horror  of  that  night — a  child  without  life. 

The  man  kept  trying  to  say  something.  He  got  it 
out  finally: 

"Don't  look  like  that!  I  had  a  right  to  shoot. 
Every  man's  home  is  his  castle.  ..." 

"This  man's  home  was  his  castle,"  said  Diana. 
"But  v:e  stormed  it,  and  on  its  ruins  we  founded  the 


340  THE    WILD    GOOSE 

ruins  of  our  own.  You  and  I  don't  matter.  We've 
got  to  think  of  Tarn  and  no  one  else.  She  must  not 
know." 

But  Tarn  knew  very  well.  She  knew  very  well  too 
what  that  wonderful  smiling  upon  her  father's  face 
had  meant. 

"Silence — Courage." 

She  never  cried.  She  never  let  them  see  that  she 
didn't  believe  the  carefully  graduated  lies  which  they 
felt  in  all  honor  bound  to  tell  her.  But  the  shock 
spoiled  her  sweet  and  good  little  life  for  her.  It  made 
her  a  little  queer — morbid,  her  teachers  said. 

In  Frank  Manners's  pocket,  stained  with  blood  that 
had  leaked  in  from  the  cataclysm  that  had  been  his 
face,  they  found  the  last  letter  that  Tam  had  written 
to  him — the  one  that  she  had  signed  "Your  loving 
friend  and  daughter."  On  the  face  of  the  letter  he 
had  scribbled  some  verses.  It  was  a  habit  he  had. 

The  letter  disappeared. 

One  day,  the  following  winter,  it  was  recitation  day 
for  the  little  girls  in  Tarn's  class,  and  when  it  was 
Tarn's  turn  to  recite  she  stood  up  before  them  all,  and 
with  a  queer  little  break  in  her  voice  she  recited  the 
queerest  little  set  of  verses  that  ever  came  out  of  a 
queer  little  child's  mouth: 

"Don't  sing  any  hymns,  don't  pray  any  prayers, 
Don't  lick  the  boots  of  any  God  for  me, 
I'm  too  tired  to  climb  even  golden  stairs, 
When  I  die,  just  let  me  be. 

On  the  deep-sea  floor  I'd  as  lief  be  laid, 

As  lief  in  the  sour  ground: 

I  don't  give  a  damn  where  the  bed  is  made, 

If  the  sleep  I  sleep  be  long  enough  and  sound." 


HERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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